This new four-part Netflix documentary on the 2011 trial in New York of the then I.M.F. President and likely French presidential candidate Dominique Strauss-Kahn, well-known enough throughout to go by the abbreviation DSK, greatly resembled its recent takedown of the deviant Jeffrey Epstein. In both, New York's wealthy Manhattan district is the background to events, both are concerned with powerful men whose sexual appetites landed them in deep trouble and harmed women and whose wealth and political connections seemed to greatly aid their fight against the cases brought against them. The difference of course between the two outcomes is that justice, and many would add karma, eventually caught up with Epstein while Strauss-Kahn, as the programme tellingly states near the end, walked free, has no criminal convictions to his name and indeed is back in the saddle in more ways than one with another attractive younger wife and likely high-paying freelance positions advising mostly African heads of state.
The programme also followed the format of "Filthy Rich" (an apt title here too) in going back and forward in time to present DSK's background before arriving at its main conclusion with his sensational trial in New York City, although there was a telling postscript I didn't know about concerning subsequent pimping allegations against him at a hotel in Lille in his home country where the trial followed a similar path to the one across the Atlantic.
While the film strove to balance its viewpoint by putting the defence case, which basically involved victim-shaming and discrediting the testimony of the lowly hotel maid who made the allegations of rape against DSK, it's very difficult not to come to the same conclusion as the many women and hotel-workers who lay in wait to jeer at Kahn as he walked free.
Personally I will never understand the mentality of those usually highly-paid lawyers who defend the apparently indefensible and often win such cases with their questionable victim manipulation technique and court experience. Yes, there were some curious incidents in Ms Diallo's story, like her feigned ignorance of speaking English when giving initial statements about the attack, her shady dealings with a now-imprisoned male contact who she allowed to lodge $60000 in her bank account at the same time as the incident with DSK and most curiously of all, that little celebratory dance by the security staff at the Sofitel hotel where she worked, after she agreed to press charges against DSK at their behest. Nevertheless she did actively contribute to the production, something, admittedly unsurprisingly, DSK failed to do.
However once the historical allegations of a similar nature made by other women in his native France were highlighted, coupled with the compelling flaw in his defence that the sex with Diallo was consensual, contradicted by her being forced to the floor in their nine-minute altercation, I know what my verdict was on this sleazy, womanising, millionaire, man-of-status by the end.
I got some satisfaction from learning that the rich heiress who was his wife and stood by him during his trial has since divorced him and of course he lost his plum I.M.F. job and never did become French president, but the fact he's still a free man frankly appals me, even if he did eventually settle a reported $1.5 million dollars on Diallo in the end.
Foreshadowing the whole "#MeToo" movement (it didn't surprise me that DSK's solicitor, who counts his client's acquittal as one of the biggest triumphs of his career later defended Harvey Weinstein), the series made a strong case that in America you tend to get the justice you can afford. That said, some of the counterclaims of the defence side, including one that DSK was set up by his then political rival at home, President Nicolas Sarkozy, seemed misguided and fanciful in the extreme.
Nevertheless my wife and I avidly watched this gripping true-life drama over just two nights and I do hope that the series gains widespread exposure so that people can draw their own conclusions about this very unsavoury man and further appreciate just how hard it is for a woman to get a rape conviction upheld, especially if the attacker has access to money and political clout in abundance, as was obviously the case here.
The programme also followed the format of "Filthy Rich" (an apt title here too) in going back and forward in time to present DSK's background before arriving at its main conclusion with his sensational trial in New York City, although there was a telling postscript I didn't know about concerning subsequent pimping allegations against him at a hotel in Lille in his home country where the trial followed a similar path to the one across the Atlantic.
While the film strove to balance its viewpoint by putting the defence case, which basically involved victim-shaming and discrediting the testimony of the lowly hotel maid who made the allegations of rape against DSK, it's very difficult not to come to the same conclusion as the many women and hotel-workers who lay in wait to jeer at Kahn as he walked free.
Personally I will never understand the mentality of those usually highly-paid lawyers who defend the apparently indefensible and often win such cases with their questionable victim manipulation technique and court experience. Yes, there were some curious incidents in Ms Diallo's story, like her feigned ignorance of speaking English when giving initial statements about the attack, her shady dealings with a now-imprisoned male contact who she allowed to lodge $60000 in her bank account at the same time as the incident with DSK and most curiously of all, that little celebratory dance by the security staff at the Sofitel hotel where she worked, after she agreed to press charges against DSK at their behest. Nevertheless she did actively contribute to the production, something, admittedly unsurprisingly, DSK failed to do.
However once the historical allegations of a similar nature made by other women in his native France were highlighted, coupled with the compelling flaw in his defence that the sex with Diallo was consensual, contradicted by her being forced to the floor in their nine-minute altercation, I know what my verdict was on this sleazy, womanising, millionaire, man-of-status by the end.
I got some satisfaction from learning that the rich heiress who was his wife and stood by him during his trial has since divorced him and of course he lost his plum I.M.F. job and never did become French president, but the fact he's still a free man frankly appals me, even if he did eventually settle a reported $1.5 million dollars on Diallo in the end.
Foreshadowing the whole "#MeToo" movement (it didn't surprise me that DSK's solicitor, who counts his client's acquittal as one of the biggest triumphs of his career later defended Harvey Weinstein), the series made a strong case that in America you tend to get the justice you can afford. That said, some of the counterclaims of the defence side, including one that DSK was set up by his then political rival at home, President Nicolas Sarkozy, seemed misguided and fanciful in the extreme.
Nevertheless my wife and I avidly watched this gripping true-life drama over just two nights and I do hope that the series gains widespread exposure so that people can draw their own conclusions about this very unsavoury man and further appreciate just how hard it is for a woman to get a rape conviction upheld, especially if the attacker has access to money and political clout in abundance, as was obviously the case here.
