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6:01 PM EST
February 9, 2015
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former finance minister of France, center, and his lawyer Henri Leclerc, left, leave the Lille courthouse, northern France, on Feb. 2. Photographer: Denis Charlet/AFP/Getty Images
(Bloomberg) -- When Dominique Strauss-Kahn takes the stand in northern France to refute charges he was at the center of an international pimping ring, he has a chance to try to prove his innocence and -- at least partially -- revive his battered reputation.
Strauss-Kahn, a former finance minister of France, is scheduled to testify for three days starting Tuesday in Lille, home to the hotel where prosecutors say some of the sex parties at the heart of the “Carlton Affair” took place.
DSK, as he’s known by across France, resigned as chief of the International Monetary Fund in 2011 after he was arrested in New York, accused of sexually assaulting a hotel maid. Those U.S. charges were dropped later that year only for him to be charged with “aggravated pimping” by French prosecutors investigating the so-called Carlton Affair in 2012.
The number of scandals that have piled since -- his investment firm was declared bankrupt in November after his partner died in an apparent suicide -- show the long road to redemption in front of him. At least one co-defendant in the French case, however, may be able to help.
David Roquet, a former executive at construction company Eiffage SA, said in an interview with BFM TV last week that on at least one occasion he hid the fact from Strauss-Kahn that the women were prostitutes, and told him they were secretaries from his firm.
The 65-year-old Strauss-Kahn, once a favorite for the French presidency, said last week on the first day of the trial that he had never been to the Carlton and that any sex parties he attended were held elsewhere. Strauss-Kahn and his lawyers argued that he didn’t know that the women were prostitutes or if they were paid.
Strauss-Kahn also said last week that he hadn’t met some of the other 13 defendants in the case. That includes Rene Kojfer, a publicist at the hotel who is accused of arranging some of the parties, and Dominique Alderweireld, a cigar-smoking businessman who runs a massage parlor business in neighboring Belgium and goes by the nickname “Dodo la Saumure.”
The trial is scheduled to run until February 20 and could be extended by a week. If convicted, Strauss-Kahn could face as much as 10 years in prison and a 1.5 million-euro ($1.7 million) fine.
To contact the reporter on this story: Hugo Miller in Geneva at hugomiller@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Heather Smith at hsmith26@bloomberg.net Anthony Aarons
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