New York v. Strauss-Kahn Indictment No.

02526/2011

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

D was taken into custody on May 14, 2011, and identified in a line-up by the complainant and arrested by the New York City Police Department (NYPD'). The People filed a felony complaint on May 15, 2011, charging D with the same crimes for which he was later indicted. P must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that D engaged in a sexual act with the complainant using forcible compulsion and without her consent. Two critical elements - force and lack of consent - would rest solely on the testimony of the complaining witness at trial. The physical, scientific, and other evidence establishes that D engaged in a hurried sexual encounter with the complainant, but it does not independently establish her claim of a forcible, nonconsensual encounter. There are no other eyewitnesses to the incident. These circumstances require that the complainant is credible. The complainant has provided shifting and inconsistent versions of the events surrounding the alleged assault, and as a result, we cannot be sufficiently certain of what actually happened on May 14, 2011, or what account of these events the complainant would give at trial. She has not been truthful, on matters great and small, many pertaining to her background and some relating to the circumstances of the incident itself. The complainant gave a vivid, highly-detailed, and convincing account of having been raped in her native country, which she now admits is entirely false. She also gave prosecutors and the grand jury accounts of her actions immediately after the encounter with D that she now admits are false. All of these falsehoods would need to be disclosed to a jury at trial.