Dominique Strauss-Kahn was questioned for a third and final day on Thursday, in his trial for alleged “aggravated pimping”, regarding his role in orgies held in Belgium, France and Washington DC between 2008 and 2011.
The former director of the International Monetary Fund dominated proceedings, mocking the lawyer for an anti-prostitution group and making a joke of a question by the lawyer representing two prostitutes who testified against him.
For two days, the trial had seemed to veer off course. Le Monde spoke of a "malaise" at the "insistent display of the most raw details of [Strauss-Kahn's] sexuality" and asked whether it was really the charge of aggravated pimping that was being considered. Judge Bernard Lemaire had warned the court on the opening day of the trial that it was "not the guardian of moral order but of the law and its strict application".
Strauss-Kahn, known as DSK, had responded angrily to the earlier line of questioning, saying: “I’m starting to get fed up. I’m not on trial for sexual behaviour. People don’t have to approve of my lifestyle, but why does the court dwell on this? Unless they want to try me for deviant sexual practices – but that crime no longer exists.”
Through a quirk of the French justice system, the investigating magistrates who charged Strauss-Kahn with aggravated pimping and brought the case to trial are not participants. The prosecutor, Frédéric Fevre, who would normally be Strauss-Kahn’s chief accuser and interrogator, argued in the indictment of 14 individuals that there was insufficient evidence to convict Strauss-Kahn.
The judge and two lawyers made feeble attempts to question Strauss-Kahn regarding the evidence on which the investigating magistrates based their case: three dozen text messages DSK exchanged with Fabrice Paszkowski, his close friend and the main organiser of the orgies, and the rental of a Paris apartment where some of the soirées libertines took place.
“Do you want to discover a wonderful naughty club with me (and equipment) in Madrid?” Strauss-Kahn texted Paszkowski in June 2009. Both men said “equipment” was an unfortunate choice of words, but claimed it referred to “libertine couples” for group sex, not prostitutes.
The only allusions to money were in texts between Paszkowski and prostitutes – for example, Florence, offering in January 2010 to bring a “beautiful, naughty woman with a super body” to a party, and to “give you a discount for me”.
Paszkowski wrote to Strauss-Kahn the following month, saying he had “very beautiful new things for my trip to DC”. In September 2010, Paszkowski texted Estelle, another prostitute who had sex with Strauss-Kahn, offering her €1,600 for a three-hour stint and asking her to send photos of the friend she proposed to bring along.
Paszkowski sent DSK lists of women for a Washington trip and referred to “a new one, soon, in France, a phenomenon!”
“Nothing proves the label of ‘instigator’ that they tried to stick on me,” Strauss-Kahn said. “These texts show only that I was invited to these evenings. I wasn’t asking for anything.”
Article 225.10 of the French penal code says putting a place at the disposition of a prostitute constitutes pimping. Investigating magistrates interpreted the use of Strauss-Kahn’s Paris apartment for sex parties as pimping. At times, he owed up to €37,000 in unpaid rent.
The judge asked Strauss-Kahn why he hid the fact that he was the tenant of the apartment, by asking a friend in the US to sign the lease. “I was a married politician,” he said. “I needed to receive political personalities in a discreet manner, but also to receive young women. I didn’t want it to be known, so I got a friend to rent it. It’s of biblical simplicity.”
In arguing that Strauss-Kahn should be cleared, the prosecutor said the rental could be considered pimping only if it was proven that Strauss-Kahn knew his partners were prostitutes and if he rented the apartment expressly for that purpose.
Asked why he stopped organising soirées libertines after Strauss-Kahn was arrested in New York on charges of sexually assaulting a hotel maid, Paszkowski said DSK's downfall was "a psychosis, a shock. We were overwhelmed by it. It was a very, very complicated period for everyone. Dominique was the main attraction of the soirées. We held the soirées around the presence of Dominique."
When the questioning of Strauss-Kahn ended, Bernard Lemettre, an elderly man who has worked for 40 years for Le Nid [the nest], an association that helps women break out of prostitution, took the stand. He spoke of the “pervasive feeling of shame” in the courtroom and likened prostitution to the slave trade.
Strauss-Kahn sat in the front row picking his nose while Lemettre spoke. His chief lawyer, Henri Leclerc, thanked Lemettre “for what you are and for what you do”.
