STEPPING FORWARD: French journalist Tristane Banon says Dominique Strauss-Khan tried to rape her in 2002. (ABACAUSA.com)
A French writer who claims that Dominique Strauss-Kahn tried to rape her during an interview in 2002 plans to finally file a criminal complaint with French police, her lawyer said yesterday.
Tristane Banon, 31, had gone pub lic with her allegations against the powerful Pepé Le Pew-like polit ico several years ago. But she didn’t file a criminal complaint at the time because her mother, Anne Mansouret, a regional politician in the Socialist Party, urged against it.
Strauss-Kahn is one of France’s most powerful men, the head of the Interna tional Monetary Fund and a leading presiden tial candidate there.
Banon’s move to fi nally try to bring charges against Strauss- Kahn comes two days after a Sofitel hotel maid in Manhat tan told NYPD cops that he tried to rape her as she cleaned his room.
Banon’s lawyer, David Koubbi, said his client was “literally blown over” but “certainly not surprised” when she heard Strauss-Kahn had been arrested for allegedly attacking the maid, the Guardian newspaper reported.
In France, a sexual assault has a three-year statute of limitations, but a rape or an attempted rape has a 10-year statute.
Strauss-Kahn — a thrice-married father of four — had previously been investigated by the IMF’s board in 2007 over whether he had pressured a subordinate, Piroska Nagy, into an affair. He was eventually cleared of that charge.
But Nagy, in a letter to an IMF investigator, wrote, “I fear he is a man with a problem that may make him ill-equipped to lead an institution where women work under his command.”
In 2008, Aurelie Filipetti, a Socialist member of the French Parliament, claimed that Strauss-Kahn once groped her.
An opposition politician in France yesterday even insisted that this wasn’t the first time that Strauss-Kahn got randy with a maid at the Sofitel, although he didn’t offer any proof, according to the French magazine L’Express.
Strauss-Kahn “goes there all the time. This has happened many times over many years,” charged the conservative legislator, Bernard Debre. “Everyone at the hotel knows about it.”
“The employees are on the point of revolting. The management knows what is going on, but they don’t dare say anything,” he said. “The management has snuffed out the other affairs. There have been other chambermaids besides [Strauss-Kahn’s accuser] . . . who have been attacked.”
Sofitel Worldwide CEO Robert Gaymer-Jones angrily called the claims “completely untrue and slanderous” and added, “Management is not aware of any previous cases of attempted sexual aggression.”
Debre belongs to the same party as French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who was expecting Socialist Strauss-Kahn to oppose him next year.