Ex-IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn in court on pimping charges

http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-france-dominique-strauss-kahn-20150202-story.html



Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn,and his lawyer, Henri Leclerc, left, leave the Lille courthouse in northern France on Feb. 2.

Ex-IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn in court on pimping charges
Alexandra Zavis
2.2.2015

Former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn faced another humiliating day in a court Monday when he appeared on charges accusing him of procuring sex workers for an international prostitution ring operating out of luxury hotels in Europe and the United States.

Paying for sex is not illegal in France, but it is against the law to procure prostitutes for others or to run a prostitution business.

Strauss-Kahn, 65, has admitted attending “libertine” parties in Paris, Brussels and Washington between 2009 and 2011, when he was serving as IMF chief, according to French news reports. But he says he did not know that some of the women present were prostitutes.

“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,” his attorney, Henri Leclerc, told reporters after the investigation was launched in 2011.