Dominique Strauss-Kahn managed to avoid a sexual assault trial in New York and a gang-rape charge connected to sex parties he attended (including one in Washington, D.C.), but he’s not going to avoid a trial for aggravated pimping quite so easily. According to details of the case leaked to Le Figaro, the judges are not impressed by his claim that he didn’t realize the women at the parties were prostitutes. “The evidence suggests that he ‘could not have been unaware about these young women’s status,’” reports The Telegraph. “The investigating judges supported their conclusions by citing these women’s ‘clothing and behaviour, as provocative as it was vulgar.’”
Prostitution is legal in France but procuring prostitutes (a.k.a. pimping) is not, and the judges said Strauss-Kahn appeared to be the “instigator” of a prostitution ring. He “initiated and clearly and knowingly helped create a system based on the complicity of his immediate entourage with the goal of satisfying his sexual needs,” they wrote, per The Telegraph’s translation of Le Figaro. So on the third try, it looks like Strauss-Kahn will finally wind up at his own trial.
