DSK: The Potage Thickens

Thanks to Mr. Ex-Enchilada for sharing a very interesting article in the New York Review of Books about some new discoveries in the DSK rape case in New York. The writer, Edward Jay Epstein, brings to light some interesting facts that may hint to the theory, which many in the French Left had at the time, that DSK had been framed by Sarkozy because he was surging ahead in the polls. It is fun detective reading:  DSK's Blackberry (one of many), the reason why he called the Sofitel and let them know where he was, so they would return it to him, appears to have been disabled -- not just turned off -- but its GPS capabilities disabled, at 12:51 pm, about half an hour after the alleged rape occurred. DSK was not just simply concerned about his lost phone. As head of the IMF and very important VIP person, he has lots of phones. He was greatly concerned about this one phone, which he used only for IMF business, because somebody in his staff had alerted him to the possibility that it had been hacked. Hmmm...
His accusers' inconsistencies, which are the reason the prosecution dropped the case, include her lies about having visited the adjoining room after the rape, but not before it. However, the electronic key records show that she was in that room twice but did not confess to the second time, which is why the police did not search that room and treat it as a crime scene. There's more: a room service employee was also in DSK's room at a certain point around the time of the crime but he refuses to talk to anyone. The hotel refused to tell the police who was staying in that room for privacy reasons (couldn't the police get a search warrant or something? Hmmm...). Also, a long time elapsed between Diallo's alleged rape and how long she took to disclose it, but more importantly, Sofitel management placed several suspicious phone calls and took its sweet time to finally call the police (kind of understandable, if not justifiable, since they are a French chain dealing with a very important French VIP).  Diallo was allegedly raped between 12:07 and 12:15 pm and ended up at the hospital about 4 pm. There's even more: the head of security operations for the Accor hotel chain, which owns Sofitel, "had worked closely in the police with Ange Mancini, who is now coordinator for intelligence for President Sarkozy", and that very day he happened to be sharing Sarko's box at a soccer match in France. Hmmm...
There is too, a bizarre little dance of celebration between two high ranking employees of the hotel after Diallo speaks to them, and many other loose ends that hint to a web of conspiracy. What is a little befuddling is that Epstein wrote that the dance lasted 3 minutes, when as you can see above, it lasts less than 15 seconds. In any case, the little dance is explainable in a different way from "Yay! Conspiracy successful -- mission accomplished!": if it is true that since his arrival to the hotel, DSK had been hounding every female employee that crossed his path, they may have harbored some antipathy to such a guest and were happy to see him nailed. Still, such victorious joyousness aprés a rape is a bit hard to fathom from usually stone faced security staff, nes't pas?
Harder to understand, in the light of these discoveries, however, is the fact that if indeed DSK committed a violent rape, why would he be calling the scene of his crime and letting Sofitel know exactly where he was so that they could bring him his phone? Even as coddled by power as he is, if he had committed a violent rape, he'd have thunk "screw the phone and the IMF, I'm outta here!" It turns out he was preoccupied by what turned out to be a prostitution ring scandal in which he is also involved as head of the IMF, among other things. This may explain why he was so hysterical about losing that phone. But if the phone was so important to him, how come he lost it? Hmmm....
I feel an irresistible urge to write the following sentence in the voice of Inspecteur Closeau: The pheune was never recovered. Hmmm...
If you think about it, would DSK even have had lunch with his daughter before leaving for the airport? We all knew this is what he did, and many of us still thought he was such an entitled bully, he was just brazen about it. He had acted with impunity before, why not this time? I must admit, knowing this string of strange facts makes him look like indeed he had nothing to hide. There is incontrovertible evidence that sex took place, (his semen mixed with her saliva on the carpet), but as far as he was concerned, it was kosher. We will never know if it was consensual or not. There is no point on taking sides. One thing is clear: he's still disgusting.
After reading Philip Gourevitch's profile of Sarko in the New Yorker, and given the nastiness and corruption of French politics, a conspiracy, although farfetched, bizarre and unseemly, is not inconceivable. Still, this does not disprove that DSK is a gros cochon. If indeed this was a conspiracy, it was brilliant: they used his Achilles heel, his uncontrollable sexual addiction, to nail him. They made him an offer he could not refuse, and he took the bait.