A $1 million countersuit has been filed by former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn against the hotel maid who accused him of sexually assaulting her. The accusation cost him his job and any chance he had for being elected as the president of France. Strauss-Kahn was arrested by New York police one year ago when Nafissatou Diallo, the hotel maid, accused him of forcible oral sex and attempted rape in his suite at the Sofitel Hotel in Manhattan. The charges against Strauss-Kahn were dropped when prosecutors lost faith in the credibility of Diallo.
Strauss-Kahn filed the countersuit on Monday, which was the anniversary of the incident. The allegations against Strauss-Kahn were denied when he said the sexual incident with Diallo was consensual. Diallo sued Strauss-Kahn in state Supreme Court in the Bronx. In the countersuit, Strauss-Kahn denies wrongdoing in the case and has accused Diallo of “knowingly and intentionally making a false report to law enforcement authorities.”
“Soon after she entered the room, Ms. Diallo and Mr. Strauss-Kahn engaged in mutually consensual acts,” the claim states. “No violence, force or coercion attended their sexual encounter, and Ms. Diallo suffered no injuries whatsoever.”
Strauss-Kahn seeks damages for his arrest, which included a stint at Rikers Island and house arrest in Tribeca along with damages for losing his job and harm to his reputation. The suit is asking for $1 million in damages and an unknown amount of punitive damages. The suit was filed only two weeks after Strauss-Kahn’s request to have Diallo’s lawsuit thrown out because of diplomatic immunity. The motion by Strauss-Kahn for dismissal was rejected by Bronx Supreme Court Justice Douglas McKeon.
Douglas Wigdor, a lawyer for Diallo, described the countersuit as ‘a desperate ploy.’ “One year to the day of his brutal sexual assault of Ms. Diallo, this is yet another example that personifies Strauss Kahn’s misogynistic attitude,” Wigdor said in a statement.
One of the lawyers for Strauss-Kahn, William W. Taylor III, said in a released statement that “(i)it should come as no surprise that Mr. Strauss-Kahn is asserting claims against Ms. Diallo for her false allegations against him.”
“She is directly responsible for his being arrested, imprisoned, and subjected to extraordinary pain, anguish and expense. Her conduct is not without consequence for her and he is not required to simply endure what she did and her effort to profit for herself without fighting back,” Taylor said in the statement.