>>>
breaking her silence so protect both her life and her reputation. that's what the hotel maid who accused
dominique
strauss-kahn
of sexually assaulting her says she is doing. in an emotionally and detailed
cover story
with "newsbeak" nafissatou diallo says she is not only telling the truth, but she wants the ex-imf head to go to prison for what he has done.
christopher dickey
from the
daily beast
joins me now to talk about this amazing story. it is an extraordinary story. what's even more extraordinary is this interview because we rarely see someone, a victim, come forward like this to give such an emotional and raw interview, but also saying that she wants to see this man go to jail. from the reporting that "newsbeak" and the
daily beast
is doing, do you find her totally to be believable? do you think she is credible?
>>
i think she's very credible when she's talking about the incident at the hotel. the criminal sexual assault, the daemtd rape. that story is ??jju)?uq't. it's been consistent all along since the day the incident happened. when she talks about the rest of her life, you know, she's a woman living on the margins of
american society
. she's an immigrant from one of the roughest countries in africa. there's a lot of gray areas there, but when she's talking about her job at the hotel and about the encounter with
dominique
strauss-kahn
and about her fears that she would lose her job because of his craziness, then it's a plausible story.
>>
we have a statement from
dominique
strauss-kahn
's attorneys that i wanted to read that are taking great exception to the claims that she's making calling her "the first accuser in history to conduct a media campaign to persuade a prosecutor to pursue charges against a person from whom she wants money." what does this comment tell you about the case itself, the legal battle, what's going on
behind the scenes
, and then also, do you talk to her about the money?
>>
sure, of course, we did. we had more than three hours with her. first of all, yes, there is concern by her lawyers that the prosecutor is going to drop the case because while there was certainly every reason to have probable cause to arrest
dominique
strauss
can, once you take those gray areas of her background, frens, her lying on her asylum petition to come into the
united states
, suddenly you see it's going to be very hard to get over that threshold of
reasonable doubt
beyond a reasonable doubt
if it's put in front of a jury, so it's -- it looks like a loser from the prosecution's point of view.
>>
okay. so that's part of the situation here. you know, it's great that
strauss-kahn
's lars are saying that about her. what are they saying about him? neither his lawyers nor
strauss-kahn
have said a single word about when he actually did in that room ?. what did he do? what's his story? that's what we're not hearing.
>>
also, the waters are a bit muddied with the prosecution investigation not handing over some information to the defense lawyers so, there could be --
>>
well, they actually haended over even more than they needed to. the biggest -- the murkiest area, this right now has to do with a conversation that diallo had a guy in a
detention center
in irarizona who she had known for two or three years, at least, several years, and supposedly they talked about money the day after the event, but that quote is a paraphrase put in the "new york times" in quotes, oddly enough, and it's a parafradz from a one-page summary of an hour-long conversation. we don't even know it.
>>
i do. i do.
>>
from her point of view, yes.
>>
this week's edition of "news week." thanks again. no thank
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