Strauss-Kahn Departs America; Beneficiary of "Dive" by DA Vance

Vance’s position that the alleged victim’s "credibility" had been compromised is pure nonsense; the U.S. government has used the testimony of members of the Mafia –criminal murderers and thieves– to win convictions against other Mafia criminals.


[Editorial]

Accused rapist and disgraced former IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn slipped out of the United States today, presumably on his way to France, his native country.

He was once slated as a potential winning presidential candidate in France; he’s happy he’s no longer facing trial for alleged attempted rape in the United States. The accused rapist dodged a bullet when New York County District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., succumbed to a media demonization campaign against Strauss-Kahn’s alleged victim Nafissatou Diallo, and abandoned the case.

Vance’s official position was that since Diallo had an alleged propensity to lie, he couldn’t, in good conscience, prosecute Strauss-Kahn; notwithstanding the well-publicized information that Strauss-Kahn himself has a propensity to force himself sexually upon women.

He had reportedly previously coerced a colleague at the IMF for sex and is now accused of having raped a French writer, Tristane Banon, almost a decade ago.

Vance decided to bet on the man with a record of alleged sexual aggression against women, and against a woman who lied about her past in order to gain entry into the United States, where she was not engaged in criminal activity, but was working as a hotel room cleaner, to improve her lot in life. Of course it was all a convenient excuse for Vance.

Vance must have wanted to drop the case all along, judging by the early leaks from his office to media, intended to publicly discredit Diallo and to pollute any potential jury pool. Not surprisingly, all the major corporate daily newspapers —The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Daily News and The New York Post— found no fault with Vance when he took a dive.

Vance’s position that the alleged victim’s “credibility” had been compromised is pure nonsense; the U.S. government has used the testimony of members of the Mafia –criminal murderers and thieves– to win convictions against other Mafia criminals. So why couldn’t Diallo have her day in court if the government can rely on the statement of killers, so long as adequate context is provided to jurors, to win convictions?

Of course it was easier for DA Vance to take a dive because the alleged victim was an African immigrant; Diallo had no base and no effective constituency to ensure that the DA would fight for her. This is a sad statement on the mechanism of the “justice” system. Strauss-Kahn clearly calculated his risks. What if the alleged victim had been a White hotel employee? Certainly, the district attorney would not have run from the case.

There’s more evidence Vance is cynical when he argues that Diallo’s integrity compromised the case. When a White woman, who was admittedly drunk silly, and didn’t even remember how she got home, accused two police officers Kenneth Moreno and Franklin Mata of raping her, Vance didn’t flinch. He never claimed the woman’s credibility was compromised because she was a “drunkard.” In the officers’ case there was no DNA evidence, but testimony from the alleged victim; in Strauss-Kahn’s case, his semen was reportedly splashed in the room.

Vance prosecuted the officers; and, even though the officers were not convicted of rape, the alleged victim was allowed her day in court.

Not so, for Diallo. She was dispensable to DA Vance. The City’s top justice officer can’t prosecute cases based on the alleged pedigree of the victims. That’s why Cyrus Vance does not deserve to be district attorney.

If there’s a campaign to recall Vance from his office, this newspaper would endorse and promote it. People who care about “justice for all” should remember this blot on Vance’s record if he ever runs for re-election.

Strauss-Kahn was never deterred by his past close calls; why should he learn any lesson from involvement with Naffisatou Diallo?

Emboldened with his Houdini-like escape, and financed by his wife Anne Sinclair’s infinite wealth, Dominique Strauss-Kahn will possibly move on to take advantage of another woman somewhere.

“Speaking Truth To Empower.”

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