DSK Questioned in Prostitution Ring Scandal

Dominique Strauss-Kahn has been detained for questioning by French police about his possible involvement in an alleged prostitution ring. Police say that the former International Monetary Fund chief slept with prostitutes from an organized hotel ring during and after his IMF tenure. Strauss-Kahn's defense? He didn't know the women were prostitutes.  

The Associated Press reports that the police have already questioned prostitutes who say they had sex with Strauss-Kahn in 2010 and 2011 at a Paris hotel, as well as in Washington D.C., when Strauss-Kahn was the IMF chief and a front-runner for the French presidency.

Police and other French officials have already been implicated in the ring, which spanned France and parts of Belgium. Two men associated with Strauss-Kahn are also being investigated on charges of organizing the ring and misusing corporate funds. DSK was first linked to the investigation back in October. He is not believed to be a major figure in the organization of the hotel rings.

Apparently, Strauss-Kahn frequented orgies at which the prostitutes were present in Paris and D.C., the BBC explains. One of his lawyers told the media that the former French presidential front-runner had no way of knowing the women at said orgies were hired. Here is the exact quote from December, via the AP:

"He could easily not have known, because as you can imagine, at these kinds of parties you're not always dressed, and I challenge you to distinguish a naked prostitute from any other naked woman."

The scandal in which Strauss-Kahn is implicated—just  the latest for the former IMF chief—has a name, the BBC notes: the "Carlton affair," after the Lille hotel where clients were allegedly supplied with call-girls.