Doubts among prosecutors are the latest indication that charges against Mr. Strauss-Kahn are headed toward dismissal, officials familiar with the situation said.
Assistant District Attorney Joan Iluzzi-Orbon, one of the lead prosecutors of the case, said it was unclear whether the woman could be a viable witness. "It would have to be that I believed every word that came out of her mouth, and that I believe in the criminal aspect of what occurred," Ms. Iluzzi-Orbon said in an interview.
The false statements included the woman's whereabouts immediately after the alleged May 14 assault, an account of a previous gang rape and previously unreported admissions to prosecutors last week that she had earned money through a marketing business and had a second cell phone, according to officials and a court filing.
French writer who says she was assaulted by Dominique Strauss-Kahn a decade ago poised to file charges in Paris. Video courtesy Reuters.
Prosecutors for Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. haven't decided whether or not to drop the seven-count indictment against Mr. Strauss-Kahn, 62, who has pleaded not guilty. He was released from house arrest Friday after prosecutors disclosed credibility problems with the alleged victim, a maid at the Sofitel hotel in Manhattan.
Mr. Strauss-Kahn's lawyers say this is the first step to vindication, and they will move to have the charges dismissed.
Kenneth Thompson, a lawyer for the woman, a 32-year-old Guinean immigrant, said last week that her mistakes notwithstanding, she "from day one has described that sexual assault many times," and consistently. Mr. Thompson didn't respond to requests for comment.
Prosecutors began questioning the woman's credibility issues during the second week of June, three weeks after the alleged attack. Mr. Thompson called to say his client wanted to describe inaccuracies in her political asylum application—that she made false statements about brutal treatment by Guinean authorities. Mr. Thompson has said the woman made those statements so she and her daughter would receive asylum in the U.S.
After a June 9 meeting, Mr. Thompson refused to bring her for another interview with authorities until a week ago, June 28, because the woman was upset by questioning during the earlier interview, an official familiar with the matter said.
At the meeting last week, the woman admitted she had two cellphones—after initially telling prosecutors she only had one—and that she used the second one to call a man incarcerated in Arizona, the official said. In addition, after saying the hotel job was her only source of income, the woman acknowledged she earned money by referring customers to ACN Inc., a marketing business based in Concord, N.C. Carolina that offers Internet, television and phone services.
An ACN spokesman confirmed the woman was an independent contractor who had "acquired some customers" between November 2010 and February 2011.
The woman also said she had been raped in Guinea but under different circumstances than those she had described earlier. "She was taken from her store to a jail cell by some military people, and she was then raped by two of them" one after another, the woman said, according to an official familiar with her account. The woman added that "she never told anyone about that until this day."
The woman also told prosecutors she hadn't hidden in a hallway after her encounter with Mr. Strauss-Kahn, which occurred around noon, but had continued to clean before reporting the alleged attack to her supervisor, said the prosecutors' court filing on Friday.
According to officials familiar with the situation, the maid never called her supervisor after the alleged incident but resumed cleaning a nearby room she had started earlier. She then returned to clean Mr. Strauss-Kahn's room, they said, and ran into her supervisor when she went to get fresh sheets.
Late last week, prosecutors received a partial transcript of a tape-recorded conversation she'd had with the man incarcerated in a federal immigration detention center, law-enforcement officials say. The man had been arrested while trying to sell marijuana to undercover officers, one of the officials familiar with the investigation said.
During the call, the man asked her if she was OK. The woman said she stood to make a lot of money from the attack because Mr. Strauss-Kahn was wealthy. Prosecutors need to further investigate the recorded call, which has not yet been fully transcribed, one law enforcement official said.
Authorities also are looking into transactions involving tens of thousands of dollars in deposits to an account in the woman's name made by men in different states, the official said. The maid said she had given the bank account number to the inmate in Arizona and wasn't aware whether any of the deposits related to illegal activities. Investigators are trying to track who made large withdrawals from the account, the official said.
If prosecutors, after further investigation, believe that a crime may have been committed, they would have to decide whether to go forward with the case knowing that the maid's credibility problems could make it impossible to win.
Gerald Shargel, a Manhattan criminal defense attorney, said that if the corroborating evidence is strong enough, the weaknesses of a witness can often be overcome. "You can support a person with frail credibility," he said.
Ultimately, though the maid may stick to her story and prosecutors believe there is enough evidence to support it, they are unlikely to pursue the case against Mr. Strauss-Kahn if they don't believe they can win. "We don't take cases to trial unless we believe we can prove them beyond a reasonable doubt," said Daniel Alonso,
By MICHAEL ROTHFELD
taken from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304760604576425973330277408.html?mod=WSJ_hp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsSecond
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