Strauss-Kahn DNA Reportedly Found On Hotel Maid’s Clothes
Forensic evidence could prove sexual encounter between DSK and his accuser.
| Posted Tuesday, May 24, 2011, at 8:58 AM
A DNA sample taken from former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn reportedly matches semen found on the work clothes of the hotel maid accusing him of sexual assault.
The forensic evidence was first reported Monday by the French website Atlantico.fr, and later confirmed by a number of U.S. media outlets, including the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.
(The Times cites “a person briefed on the matter” as it source; the Journal spoke with unnamed “law enforcement officials.”)
The Times:
The results … represented the first forensic evidence confirming that Mr. Strauss-Kahn, 62, had indeed engaged in a sexual act with the housekeeper, a 32-year-old woman from Guinea who was granted asylum in the United States and is raising her 15-year-old daughter.
The DNA match supports the account provided by the woman to police, but would also appear to be consistent with what Strauss-Kahn’s legal team has suggested may be his defense: that a sexual encounter did in fact occur when the woman came to clean his room but that it was consensual.
Strauss-Kahn's lawyers have declined to comment on the reports.
Other test results, including from samples taken from the hotel suite’s carpet, are still pending.
UPDATED at 9:15 a.m.: New York police on Tuesday denied reports that they have found traces of Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s DNA on the clothes of his accuser, stressing that investigators have given “no result and no information” about the results, AFP reports.
A number of major media outlets had reported the existence of the DNA match, citing unnamed sources familiar with the testing. The Wall Street Journal, however, cited unnamed "law enforcement officials."
UPDATED at 9:45 a.m.: In a subsequent draft of the AFP article, the news wire clarifies that the NYPD isn't necessarily denying the reports, just denying that the department was the source of the news.
AFP's new lede (emphasis added): "New York police Tuesday denied being the source of news reports that traces of semen from ex-IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn on a chambermaid's clothes..."
