Settlement Reached In Hotel Maid's Lawsuit Against DSK
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- Former International Monetary Fund leader Dominique Strauss-Kahn and the New York City hotel maid who filed a sexual assault lawsuit him reached a settlement Monday.
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Strauss-Kahn's attorneys William Taylor III and Amit Mehta issued the following statement Monday:
"On behalf of Mr. Strauss-Kahn, we are pleased to have arrived at a resolution of this matter. We are grateful to Judge McKeon whose patience and forbearance allowed this agreement to be formulated."
Strauss-Kahn's lawyers acknowledged late last month there had been settlement talks, though they dismissed as "flatly false" a French newspaper report that Strauss-Kahn had agreed to pay $6 million. Nafissatou Diallo's lawyers have declined to comment.
"I thank everybody all over the world and everybody at the court, and God bless you all,'' Diallo said afterward.
Strauss-Kahn did not attend the hearing.
Diallo said Strauss-Kahn tried to rape her when she arrived to clean his room at the Sofitel Hotel in May of last year. He said the encounter was consensual.
He was arrested and charged with attempted rape and other crimes and resigned from his IMF job.But the charges were later dropped after prosecutors lost faith in Diallo's credibility. That's when she filed a civil lawsuit accusing him of assault.
Strauss-Kahn, who returned to France after the charges were dropped, has claimed diplomatic immunity should protect him from the lawsuit. He counter sued for $1 million earlier this year. Neither case has come close to trial.
Gaetan Mathieu is a French journalist who covered the story from the beginning.
"At first people were just saying, America just didn't like French people, they don't like DSK, like there's no proof against him. but since then there have been so many stories about prostitutes and his friends that i feel like now people discovered who he really was," Mathieu told CBS 2's Don Dahler. "Everybody thought he would be the next president."
There's still a lot of interest about the case in France. In fact, a play just debuted in Paris that tries to imagine what might have happened in that hotel room. So far, every performance has been sold out.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn has been trying to resume his career in France in recent months by giving speeches at private conferences and setting up a business consulting firm.
(TM and Copyright 2012 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2012 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
