Seems the parade of Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s sex scandals — see our DSK Files for a sampling — are not over yet. DSK’s name has now come up in a high-profile investigation of a prostitution ring run out of the Hotel Carlton in the northern French city of Lille. Based on reports published in several French newspapers, many including interviews with Belgian sex workers, several “soirées” were arranged for DSK both in Paris and later in Washington, D.C. Notwithstanding the girls’ testimony, it was a series of text messages sent to businessmen implicated in the ring that seems to have gotten DSK in trouble.
In one message, Strauss-Kahn, then head of the IMF, asked if the man wanted to accompany him to a “magnificent” swingers club in Madrid, suggesting he bring “material” – thought to mean women. In another, he said he was taking a girl, “une petite”, to clubs in Vienna and would the man like to come with a “demoiselle”, or “Miss”. A few days later he asked if the “suite with pool” had been booked. The text messages do not explicitly refer to prostitution.
Given DSK’s track record regarding prosecutions of a sexual nature, he may be in for little more than a thumping in the media. But so soon after beating the Tristane Banon investigation and looking increasingly tired now with a white beard, DSK’s hopes of a quiet return to normality have just been dashed. Oh, and there’s still that teensy civil lawsuit monsieur is still facing in Bronx court brought by Nafissatou Diallo, the Guinean hotel housekeeper who famously accused the former IMF managing director of raping her in a New York hotel.
