There are new holes in the rape case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn and more inconsistencies regarding the hotel chambermaid at the center of the sensational sex charges, DNAinfo has learned.
Sources tell "On the Inside" that these new revelations are proving to be the final tipping points on the scales of justice, pushing the Manhattan District Attorney to drop the case against the disgraced former head of the International Monetary Fund on Tuesday when he appears in court.
Among the latest revelations surfacing in the case:
• The final translation of the controversial jailhouse telephone conversation between chambermaid Nafissatou Diallo and her con-man ex-boyfriend the day after the alleged attack has raised yet another credibility issue for the accuser.
According to sources, her boyfriend, Amara Tarawally, told her how wealthy Strauss-Kahn is and how much money she might make. "He suggests she can make a lot," one source said. Rather than brushing off the notion, she says she is well aware of the financial prospects.
There is nothing wrong with a victim knowing their assailant has money, and that there is the possibility the attacker can be made to literally pay for a crime. But the problem for Diallo is that she swore in interviews to investigators and prosecutors that the thought of cashing in on this incident never crossed her mind. Yet it's clear from the final translation that those very words not only crossed her mind, but they crossed her lips one day after the incident in the Sofitel Hotel.
• There is now another plausible answer for what many people claimed was one of the strongest pieces of physical evidence in the case – the bruises Diallo suffered. She asserted the injuries occurred when Strauss-Kahn attacked her and clawed at her and ripped her panties while unsuccessfully trying to rape her before forcing her to perform oral sex.
But Diallo apparently engaged in sexual activity as recently as one day before the assault took place, and that might account for some of the bruising, one source said.
The prosecutors have already accused Diallo of making up a story about being gang-raped in her homeland, Guinea, that she used to get into the U.S. and that she convincingly recounted to veteran investigators after the Sofitel incident.
She also filed false tax forms claiming additional dependents besides her one daughter, and bank accounts with her name attached to them showed $100,000 of unexplained cash passing through them.
My sources say there are "even more issues" involving inconsistencies in her statements and her background than have been laid out here. And filing a civil lawsuit in the Bronx seeking financial damages and telling her story to a national magazine and television morning program has further eroded confidence in her criminal case.
It all further confounds a case that was once viewed as rock solid for DA Cyrus Vance, but now seems like sand.
Diallo's attorney, Kenneth Thompson, did not return calls for comment.
To be sure, something sexual occurred between Diallo and Strauss-Kahn, then a potential candidate to become the next president of France.
His semen was in the room and on her clothes. Even his lawyers concede something happened, but claim it was consensual.
No prosecutor should knowingly move forward with a case that they do not fully believe in or have the rational expectation of winning beyond a reasonable doubt.
That is the way the system is supposed to work.
But DSK has not been your typical case. From the start it presented challenges. Strauss-Kahn had to be taken from a plane about to leave for France only hours after the incident. And his international status separated this case from all others.
But in the end the evidence will tip the scales. And unless something changes by Tuesday, those scales are leaning heavily in Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s direction.
