Boys Club

What Next in DSK Case?

Maid cleaning up as ‘hooker’ NY Post

Generic hotel photo

Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s accuser wasn’t just a girl working at a hotel — she was a working girl.

The Sofitel housekeeper who claims the former IMF boss sexually assaulted her in his room was doing double duty as a prostitute, collecting cash on the side from male guests, The Post has learned.

Not only is the article damning in terms of the allegations that the maid who accused Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexual assault is a prostitute. It drags the hotel workers union into the discussion, with an innuendo that Union 6 “saw her as an earner”.

The NYPost article continues:

“We have people who have been victimized, who have claimed she ripped them off. Nice working people from her neighborhood,” a source said.

It’s also claimed that the maid admitted misrepresenting her income in order to stay in current housing and claimed two children on her income tax returns, when she only has one child. (Update: this is true.)

The maid’s lawyer, Kenneth Thompson is accusing prosecutors of sabotaging the case despite strong evidence of rape.

“Our concern is that District Attorney Vance is too afraid to try this case,” Thompson said. “We believe he’s afraid he’s going to lose this high-profile case” like he did the trials over an alleged cop rape and the Deutsche Bank Building fire.

Thompson called allegations about her call to a jailed friend — and that she had a bank account that contained $100,000 deposited by several people over two years — “a lie.”

Who is Kenneth Thompson?

The maid’s attorney is a partner in a New York law firm Thompson Wigdor LLP. Along with Kenneth Thompson, Douglas H. Wigdor is assigned to the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case.

In a moment of irony, reviewing the firm’s list of attorneys and paralegals, all nine associates and the five paralegals are men. Not a woman works in the firm at a high level, even though they specialize in gender discrimination cases as part of a larger focus on employment law.

More reading:

5 Lessons of the Dominique Strauss-Kahn Affair The Daily Beast

DSK: Dirty Old Man Meets American Mobocracy Open Salon

Frenchwomen Weigh Impact and Fallout of Strauss-Kahn Case NYTimes

(Actual) Letter from prosecutors on the accuser of Strauss-Kahn The Globe and Mail

One Revelation After Another Undercut Strauss-Kahn Accuser’s Credibility NYTimes

Our Bodies, Ourselves Abortion News

Court Blocks Kansas Law Shutting Down Abortion Clinics TIME

US Dictrict Judge Carlos Murguia issued a preliminary injunction, saying providers and women would suffer “irreparable” injury if the regulations took effect Friday as scheduled. Kansas legislators passed new laws governing the size of janitor’s closets and lockers for patients.

Dr. Herbert Hodes, who filed suit with his daughter, says abortion is just one of the services he and his daughter provide in their private ob-gyn practice. He delivers babies at nearby hospitals and performs other procedures, like tubal ligations, in his office.

“It’s a joke and a sham,” Hodes told TIME. “The only purpose is to shut down access to abortions.” He says he complies with rules from the Kansas Board of Healing Arts and the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists since “they’re realistic regulations drawn up by doctors for doctors. We all know how much legislators know about health care for women — nothing,” Hodes says.

Federal judge blocks South Dakota abortion law Reuters

A federal judge has blocked a new South Dakota abortion law that would have required the longest waiting period in the US at 72-hours. The law also requires a meeting at an anti-abortion counseling center before a woman can have the procedure.

In a 61-page opinion granting the preliminary injunction, U.S. District Court Chief Judge Karen Schreier found Planned Parenthood’s challenge of the counseling centers has merit and will most likely succeed.

The new law’s requirements “constitute a substantial obstacle to a woman’s decision to obtain an abortion because they force a woman against her will to disclose her decision to undergo an abortion to a pregnancy help center employee before she can undergo an abortion,” Schreier wrote.