LILLE, France — French police detained former International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn for questioning Tuesday over allegations he took part in orgies in Paris and Washington with prostitutes paid for by businessmen.
The 62-year-old former Socialist senior lawmaker, who until last year was seen as the front-runner to replace Nicolas Sarkozy as president of France, had been summoned as a witness but prosecutors said he is now a suspect.
He turned up voluntarily at a police station in the northern city of Lille for his appointment for questioning about his role in the latest sex scandal to beset his ruined career.
After his arrival, prosecutors said he would be detained on suspicion of “abetting aggravated pimping by an organized gang” and “misuse of company funds” and thus could face charges.
A magistrate would have to decide whether the evidence supports these charges or other potential offenses. Then, if the judge agrees, Strauss-Kahn could be released on bail or remanded in custody pending an eventual trial.
Under French law, aggravated organized pimping carries a prison term of up to 20 years and profiting from embezzlement five years and a large fine.
Between interrogations, the millionaire was to be held in a spartan 80-square-foot (7.5-square-meter) cell with a simple foam mattress, a sink and a hole-in-the-floor squat toilet.
Investigating magistrates want to know whether he was aware that the women who entertained him at parties in restaurants, hotels and swingers’ clubs in Paris, Washington and several European capitals were paid prostitutes.
They also will seek to determine whether Strauss-Kahn knew that the escorts were paid with funds fraudulently obtained by his hosts from a French public-works company for which one of them worked as a senior executive.
Paying a prostitute is not in itself illegal in France, but profiting from vice or embezzling company funds to pay for sex can lead to charges.
The former director of the IMF admits he has led an adventurous sex life but denies that he was implicated in pimping or corruption and has indicated that he will deny any criminal wrongdoing.
Strauss-Kahn’s lawyer Henri Leclerc has said his client could have been “perfectly unaware” the women were not providing their attentions for free.
Two businessmen — Fabrice Paszkowski, a medical equipment tycoon with ties to Strauss-Kahn’s Socialist Party, and David Roquet, former director of a local subsidiary of building giant BTP Eiffage — have been charged.
Strauss-Kahn is said to have met Paszkowski through a Socialist Party contact who was involved in organizing his return to French politics to contest this year’s presidential election, which he was the favorite to win.
The pair alleged links to a network of French and Belgian prostitutes centered on the Carlton Hotel in Lille, a well-known meeting place of the local business and political elite in a city run by the Socialist Party.
In all, eight people have been charged in connection with the “Carlton affair” — including three executives from the luxury hotel itself, a leading lawyer and the local deputy police chief, Jean-Christophe Lagarde.
The last of the sex parties is said to have taken place during a trip to Washington and the IMF headquarters between May 11 and May 13 last year by Paszkowski and Roquet, in part to discuss Strauss-Kahn’s presidential bid.
One day later, on May 14, Strauss-Kahn’s career fell apart when he was arrested in New York following allegations that he subjected hotel maid Nafissatou Diallo to a brutal sexual assault in his Sofitel suite.
The case against him eventually collapsed when prosecutors began to doubt Diallo’s credibility as a witness, and Strauss-Kahn returned home to France to face further investigations and scandal.
First, 32-year-old French writer Tristane Banon accused him of attempting to rape her in 2003. Prosecutors decided there was prima facie evidence of a sexual assault but ruled that the statute of limitations had passed.
Then, Strauss-Kahn was linked to the Carlton case when suspected escorts gave his name to police probing a vice ring linked to notorious Belgian pimp Dominique Alderweireld, known in the underworld as “Dodo la Saumure.”
The involvement of businessmen and police officers raised suspicions they intended to curry favor with a presidential contender by procuring women for him, but they are reported to have denied this during questioning.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn is seen through a car window as he is hauled in for questioning over a prostitution ring. (EPA)