Mr. McConnell wrote that the purpose of the meeting would be to explain “to her what I anticipate will occur in court on the following day.”
“Should she not be available or should she fail to attend, I will assume that she does not wish to take advantage of this opportunity,” Mr. McConnell added.
In other words, they are offering to explain their reasoning for dropping the charges before telling the public. As I wrote earlier today, in addition to personal credibility issues, the DA's office is now concerned about private settlement talks that took place between Thompson and DSK's lawyers in June -- concerned enough to ask Thompson to produce documents related to the meeting.
I suspect when the DA dismisses the charges, he will give two reasons. One will be problems with the accuser's credibility (based on inconsistencies in her version of events and false statements about her past history) and the other will be the actions of her lawyer. Between trotting her out in front of the media to make even more statements the defense can use to impeach her on cross-examination, filing a civil suit for damages before the criminal case is concluded, and reportedly engaging in settlement negotiations with DSK's lawyers at which money demands may have been made (Thompson denies it but if the DA asked him for documents from the discussions, clearly they aren't disregarding the possibility it's true), her lawyer's strategy may be as much the cause of the dismissal as his client's credibility problems.
If Vance can tell the public he's dismissing not just because of the accuser's credibility issues, but because those issues, combined with her lawyer's meddling, have diminished the chances of a successful prosecution to a point where they have no confidence they can win the case beyond a reasonable doubt, it may look better for Vance.
This case has never been about what happened in the hotel room. It's been about how DSK was hauled off an airplane, paraded in front of the media, forced to acquiesce to a ridiculous amount of bail with over-the-top conditions, all while the accuser, enjoying the privilege of anonymity and the protection of the DA's office, lawyered up with someone her friend found on the internet (the predecessor to Thompson)wbo took to the morning shows day after day; who discussed the case, including DSk's stature and its financial implications with her fiance/boyfriend/husband drug dealer and counterfeit clothing distributor housed in an Arizona immigration jail; and who in a last desperate move, took to the airwaves and neighborhood rallies herself to proclaim her victimhood and ask for support.
The NYPD and Manhattan Sex Crimes Unit need to learn to investigate first and arrest and charge later, after they've determined they have a solid case. With DSK, they jumped the gun and failed to objectively evaluate the facts before filing charges and seeking his arrest, all because they feared DSK would get bond.
I also doubt the civil lawsuit will uncover any great truth as to what happened in the hotel room. It's a he said, she said case, and both sides have a powerful motive -- big dollars at stake -- to lie or slant the truth. The only people who stand to gain from the civil lawsuit are the accuser and her lawyer.
Bottom line: I'm sticking with my prediction made on July 1:
This case is toast. It's not illegal to have sex with a hotel maid. The only remaining viable theories are: (1) It was a set-up (2) He paid her for the sex or (3) She consented, thinking she was going to paid, and got angry when he didn't offer money, didn't pay enough or refused to pay. While normally, paying for sex would be a crime, in this case, just like the rape claim, if he denied it, proving it would require believing her, and that's out of the question now.
The future: Dominique Strauss-Kahn will walk free and be hailed in France as a victim of an unfair American justice system that relies on outrageous perp walks and the sensationalized saturation of public opinion by American media, which views every case through guilt-colored lenses. Every defense attorney in the country will now bring up the DSK debacle in voir dire and closing when trying a he-said/she-said sex assault case. The accuser will return to Guinea to avoid criminal charges of lying to the grand jury and obstructing justice. And Cyrus Vance and his sex crimes unit will never live this one down.
Our prior coverage of the case is available here.
