Be that as it may, the prosecution will go forward if it thinks it has a case/feels it must try. They’ll ask the jury to believe that a naked man in a hotel room suddenly grabbed a woman and forced her to give him a blowjob (without injury to the penis, I should add).
The only thing this case has ‘shown’ is that when a rich and powerful man is accused of rape, the media goes bonkers.
Rape is rape. The character of the woman has nothing to do with the definition of the crime, but her brother made her out to a be a (muslim version of a) nun in an early NYT article.
Not-so-subtle slam to the rich and privileged.
Poor girl was growing up with the Koran and being righteous while DSK was learning other languages and engaging in God knows what! :dubious::smack:
The NYT (and everyone else) was quick to paint him as guilty before the juicy bits about this women’s past came along.
Are these people really her relatives and did they get paid for this story?
I just read a long account of the case in today’s NY Times. Here is what seems to be true.
There was sexual contact. Whether oral or vaginal the article seemed confused on, but his semen was found on the floor and on the wall (Huh?).
She changed her story. There was some question of what she then did. She claimed that she cleaned another room, then came back to his. Usage of keys was recorded and the hotel recorder belies her story. It is not clear why she lied about this.
She was involved in money laundering. While this impugns her credibility, it is still not clear why it is relevant.
She made that phone call the next day which suggests that she was planning on holding him up for blackmail. For one reason or other, she didn’t try it. Or maybe she did and he told her to get lost.
She definitely lied on her application as a refugee. She was not gang raped. She did not have a husband who died in prison. She was following a prepared script. I would expect that what she gets out of this is deported.
And yes he is free on his own recognizance. He can go anywhere in the US, but not leave the country. There was some mention of a plea bargain to a misdemeanor but I cannot imagine what the misdemeanor could possibly be. Reduce rape to … fornication? Is that a crime? Anyway, her story is in tatters and I cannot really see a successful prosecution.
Sounds like another case of the old Nigerian Sex Scam. Don’t know what cultural underpinnings are so institutionally and regionally instilled to make these native Africans so morally bankrupt and scammy…
I don’t know about you, but I find it a lot easier to believe that a woman who benefited from a ponzi scheme, is shown to have lied about being raped in the past to further her own personal interests, was turning tricks where the rape was alleged to have taken place, has been recorded declaring that her rationale for her course of action was was the deep pockets of the accused, and is revealed to be a copious emitter of self-serving falsehood… is merely lying about this alleged rape as well.
The alternative is to believe that an otherwise intelligent and responsible man thought that he could barrel out of the bathroom starkers, force himself on a chambermaid while she was trying to change the sheets, and everything would be business-as-usual for him. He would be so unconscious of common values that he would repeatedly call the scene of the crime back and as the woman’s co-workers to help him locate some lost property.
It’s not just a case of “Well… this can’t be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt.” It’s not that the accuser’s credibility is being unfairly impugned for some tenuous misdeeds that really don’t have much to do with the situation. It’s very hard to credit that a rape took place at all, under the circumstances.
However, it seems fairly certain that some people will still complain “That privileged son-of-a-bitch only evaded justice because he was clever enough to choose some poor vulnerable woman that people would be quick to blame just because she was a habitual liar, criminal, and grifter. Remember, if you ever get raped, you’d better hope you’re a perfect angel or your rapist will walk free, laughing!”