In 12 minute hearing, judge grants DA’s motion to dismiss all charges against Strauss-Kahn


DSK, his wife, and his attorneys leave
courthouse after case was dismissed.

From the story in today’s NYT:

Mr. Vance [the Manhattan District Attorney] has sought to allay criticism of his decision through a 25-page report that his office filed with the court on Monday and through statements made by the lead prosecutor on the case, Joan Illuzzi-Orbon, on Tuesday.

The prosecution’s original report was about three times as long, but it was scaled back to provide only the details relevant to support the legal arguments and to spare Ms. Diallo embarrassment, a law enforcement official briefed on the case said.

“At the time of the indictment, all available evidence satisfied us that the complainant was reliable,” Ms. Illuzzi-Orbon told Justice Obus. [LA replies: I have not yet read the 25 page report, but a friend who has read it tells me that it is silent about the doubts about Diallo’s credibility that were expressed by Sex Crimes Unit head Lisa Friel prior to the indictment of DSK.] “But the evidence gathered in our post-indictment investigation severely undermined her reliability as a witness in this case, to the point where we are no longer able to credit her version of events beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Before that, Ms. Illuzzi-Orbon said the case “rises and falls” on Ms. Diallo’s testimony because the physical evidence was not conclusive of a sexual assault and she was the only witness. [LA replies: An extremely important point that has only emerged this week. Prior to this, we heard repeatedly that the physical evidence did support, at least somewhat, the charge of forcible sex. Now the prosecutors have declared that the physical evidence does not support the charge of a forcible encounter. Therefore the only evidence of force comes from Diallo’s testimony, and since Diallo is a total liar there is no case. But this raises another problem. If the only evidence for force comes from Diallo’s testimony, wasn’t that a strong reason not to have rushed the indictment of DSK in the first place? See previous entry, “Time to investigate the prosecutors.”]

One of the more devastating instances in which Ms. Diallo lied came after prosecutors confronted her about where she went after the alleged attack, Ms. Illuzzi-Orbon said. Prosecutors disputed her account with independent evidence, Ms. Illuzzi-Orbon said, and she responded by denying that she had told them that.

“With three prosecutors, an investigator and a translator hanging on her every word, she said she never told us something that everyone in the room heard,” Ms. Illuzzi-Orbon said.

LA writes:

In addition to showing that Diallo is an irrepressible liar, that last sentence also shows that Illuzzi-Orbon lacks a grasp of the past perfect tense, which conveys an action that took place before a certain time in the past. The above sentence should be: “With three prosecutors, an investigator and a translator hanging on her every word, she said she had never told us something that everyone in the room had heard.” Illuzi-Orbon’s failure to convey the proper time relationship between the events she is recounting does not produce much confidence in her intelligence. And she is the lead prosecutor in the case, who, along with District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr., pushed aside all doubts about Diallo’s credibility and rushed the indictment of Strauss-Kahn.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 24, 2011 07:47 AM | Send