New York, Aug 9: Dominique Strauss-Kahn has been slapped with a civil lawsuit by a Guinean hotel maid, claming she suffered a “violent and sadistic attack” that humiliated and degraded her after the former IMF chief sexually assaulted her in a luxury Manhattan hotel.
32-year-old Nafissatou Diallo, a Guinean immigrant, filed the civil suit in the New York State Supreme Court in Bronx yesterday seeking unspecified damages for mental anguish.
“Believing that he was immune from the laws of this country, Strauss-Kahn intentionally, brutally and violently sexually assaulted Diallo and in the process humiliated, degraded, violated and robbed her of her dignity as a woman,” the 16-page lawsuit said.
It adds that Diallo suffered physical and psychological harm due to the “senseless attack” and faces “permanent harm to her professional and personal reputations... from which she may never fully recover.”
The civil lawsuit comes even as a criminal case against Strauss-Kahn, 62, is pending in state court in Manhattan. The lawsuit gives detailed account of Strauss-Kahn's assault on Diallo, saying it caused severe physical injuries to her.
Diallo's lawyer Kenneth Thompson said in court papers that he was prepared to produce testimony from other women who say they were attacked by Strauss-Kahn in “hotel rooms around the world.”
On the timing of the lawsuit, Thompson said, “Diallo has filed her lawsuit now because she wants to vindicate her rights, assert her dignity as a woman and hold Dominique Strauss-Kahn accountable for the violent and deplorable acts that he committed against her.” PTI
