All Charges in DSK Case to be Dropped

Daily Mail: Prosecutors are reportedly set to ask a judge to abandon the case against Dominique Strauss Kahn.

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance is preparing to ask that all charges against the former head of the IMF accused of attempting to rape hotel maid Nafissatou Diallo are dropped Tuesday.

Such requests from the DA 'are never denied', an expert told the New York Post meaning Strauss-Kahn could finally return to his home country after being forced to remian in the U.S for months.

It is thought the credibility of sole witness Miss Diallo is at the heart of the collapse of the case.

She has faced criticism for a series of magazine and television interviews before the case went to trial. The maid has also been accused of lying about her past in Guniea and being involved with criminal elements.

It comes after prosecutors asked to meetMiss Diallo's lawyers on Monday, in a sign the case may be headed for dismissal.

Douglas Wigdor, a lawyer for the maid, Nafissatou Diallo, said the Manhattan district attorney's office requested in a letter that Diallo meet with them at 3 p.m. The letter also said that, if she failed to appear, prosecutors would assume she was not interested in discussing the case, Wigdor said.

'This is just another piece of evidence demonstrating what may be the ultimate outcome of this case,' Wigdor told Reuters in a telephone interview from Paris. 'There have been many other facts in this office's handling of this case that have led myself and (Kenneth Thompson, another Diallo lawyer) to believe that unfortunately the district attorney's office may dismiss,' he said.

Thompson told the New York Times that the meeting could signal prosecutors are preparing to drop the charges against Strauss-Kahn. Thompson was travelling on Saturday and could not immediately be reached. Both parties were already scheduled to appear in court on Tuesday, so he took the letter as a clear sign of defeat.

'If they were not going to dismiss the charges, there would be no need to meet with her,' the newspaper quoted Thompson as saying. 'They would just go to court the next day to say, 'We're going to proceed with the case.'
Erin Duggan, the spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office, declined to comment.

Thompson said Diallo will have to cancel a physical therapy appointment to meet with prosecutors. He said she had suffered a shoulder injury during the alleged attack in May at the Sofitel hotel in Manhattan.

There has been widespread speculation that prosecutors would drop the case since late June when they revealed that Diallo had lied repeatedly in her statements and in her application for U.S. asylum, casting a shadow over her credibility. Legal observers say the only way the case could be revived is if prosecutors turn up new evidence. That appears highly unlikely.

But Paul Callan, a former New York prosecutor, warned not to read too much into the meeting. He sad: 'In high-profile cases, meetings like this are routine' to ensure the accuser is kept abreast of developments.

Commentators say the case-pitting a West African immigrant against a rich, white man who was in the running to become the next president of France-could define the career of first-time prosecutor, Cyrus Vance Jr. It will also be remembered as one where Vance took stood in front of the world's media to vouch for the integrity of the arrest before completing the investigation and vetting the maid's credibility.

Observers say it may not have been wise to defend the case on the courthouse steps or to rush it into the grand jury before an investigation was done. But most applauded Vance for revealing that the alleged victim, who has spoken publicly about the case, lied on her asylum application about being gang-raped and has ties to a jailed drug dealer. 'He took all the right steps, even if he may not be happy where they took him,' prominent defence lawyer Paul Shechtman said.

Others, like radical defence lawyer and frequent Vance critic, Ron Kuby, were less supportive. 'It's an unmitigated disaster,' he said.

Diallo, 32, filed a civil claim against Strauss-Kahn last week in New York. Her lawyers had been exploring a deal to scuttle the criminal case in exchange for a monetary settlement in the civil lawsuit, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Strauss-Kahn had been seen as a leading contender in next year's French presidential election when Diallo accused him of sexual assault on May 14 at the Sofitel Hotel in New York, forcing him to resign as head of International Monetary Fund a few days later.