Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund, IMF, has been acquitted of “aggravated pimping” in a court in Lille.
The ruling was the last step in four years of legal drama for Strauss-Kahn, beginning when a New York hotel cleaner accused him of sexual assault in 2011. That case was later settled out of court.
Strauss-Kahn had told the court in Lille that he participated in sex parties reminiscent of orgies in antiquity because he needed “recreational sessions” while he was busy “saving the world” from one of its worst financial crises.
The women at the sex parties, however, were prostitutes and testified that they were not having fun at all during the “beast-like scenes”.
Despite Strauss-Kahn’s sordid testimony, many expected him to be acquitted, citing limited evidence pointing to a punishable crime.
The 66-year-old was among more than a dozen other defendants, including hotel managers, entrepreneurs, a lawyer and a police chief.
They were accused of participating in or organising collective sexual encounters in Paris, Washington and the Brussels region in 2008-11 – when Strauss-Kahn was IMF chief, and married. The other verdicts in the case are also being decided on Friday.
During the three-week trial in February the man known in France as DSK stuck strictly to his line of defence, saying repeatedly that he did not know that the young women at the parties were prostitutes. He said he thought they were simply “libertine”.
The sometimes tearful testimony of two prostitutes cast a harsh light on Strauss-Kahn’s sexual practices. But they testified that they had never told him directly about their professions.
The prosecutor, unusually, had asked for Strauss-Kahn’s acquittal, saying the trial did not back up the charge of aggravated pimping, which requires proof that he promoted or profited from prostitution.
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