Dominique Strauss-Kahn left his rented TriBeCa digs yesterday en route to JFK Airport — and an Air France flight home last night. He and his wife landed in Paris early today and had no comment for waiting journalists.
Strauss-Kahn and his wife Anne Sinclair touched down at Paris Roissy Airport shortly after 7:00am local time. They passed quickly through the terminal, AFP reported, and were immediately whisked away in a waiting car.
They were smiling but made no statement to journalists waiting for their arrival.
Before their flight, television footage showed the couple mobbed by journalists as they walked through New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport. Strauss-Kahn, who was tie-less but wearing a dark suit and light checked shirt, made no comment to reporters but AFP reported he smiled and waved at a group of passengers.
The last time 62-year-old Strauss-Kahn was aboard an Air France flight to Paris was May 14, when officers asked him to de-board before takeoff after a maid at the hotel where he had been staying charged he had sexually assaulted her when she arrived to clean his room.
Once tipped as the possible next president of France, the economist and former French finance minister resigned as the IMF’s managing director in the aftermath of the accusation, which he denied.
Charges against him were dismissed Aug. 23 after prosecutors said they could not pursue the case because the maid’s lies on various occasions made it impossible to prove her accusations beyond a reasonable doubt.
“I’m eager to return to my country,” he told reporters that day, and in a written statement said the past three months had been a “nightmare for me and my family.”
But he still faces more legal problems now he’s back in France.
Tristane Banon, a 32-year-old writer, has filed a complaint alleging the Socialist politician tried to rape her after luring her to a Paris flat in 2003.
He has said he intends to sue Banon for defamation.
With NewsCore