Free Republic

Manhattan’s district attorney, Cyrus Vance Jr, the veteran prosecutor overseeing a criminal investigation into the former US president, Donald Trump, announced on Friday that he intends to retire instead of seeking re-election, opting against a primary fight with progressive candidates who say he is a relic and not a reformer. Vance made the announcement in a memo to staffers, ending months of speculation about his future and signaling it is likely to be a brand-new DA who sees the Trump case through, although Vance could still make a decision about charges before his term expires at the end of the...

The district attorney leading a high-profile investigation into former President Donald Trump plans on leaving office later this year.Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance, a Democrat, told the New Yorker that he will not seek reelection and plans on retiring on Dec. 31.

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., a veteran prosecutor overseeing a criminal investigation into former President Donald Trump, said Friday that he won’t seek reelection, opting against a primary fight with progressive candidates who say he’s a relic and not a reformer. Vance made the announcement in a memo to staffers, ending months of speculation about his future and almost certainly guaranteeing it’ll be a brand-new D.A. who sees the Trump case through. His term expires at the end of the year. Vance, a Democrat, counted Harvey Weinstein’s rape conviction a year ago among his crowning achievements but faced withering...

A treasure trove of artworks worth almost £1billion seized by the Nazis and reportedly destroyed in RAF bombing raids during WW2 has been found behind rotting food in shabby apartment in Munich. Experts have hailed the discovery of the 1,500 pictures, thought to have been lost or bombed, as a sensational find. The story of the lost masterpieces of such painters as Pablo Picasso, Renoir, Henri Matisse and Marc Chagall is revealed in this week's edition of Germany's Focus magazine which broke the story of the incredible find by customs officials. Art historians examining the collection claim up to 300...

Former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who is facing a probe into his alleged involvement with a prostitution ring in France, and his wife have separated, a source said. Anne Sinclair, a wealthy heiress who recently relaunched her media career as a news editor at the Huffington Post's French edition, and Strauss-Kahn separated about a month ago and they are living in separate residences in Paris, said the source, who is close to Strauss-Kahn. The weekly magazine, Closer, earlier reported in its online edition that Sinclair threw Strauss-Kahn out of their home in central Paris. Strauss-Kahn is under investigation...

As the sexual assault case against Dominque Strauss-Kahn seems to be faltering, due to concerns that the accuser has been lying to investigators (plus, there are the more scurrilous rumors), he may actually face a new set of charges in his native country: Writer Tristane Banon, who has said in interviews that the former IMF head and leading Socialist politician of trying to rape her in 2002, is going to formally accuse him of rape. However, his lawyers suggests that Strauss-Kahn may countersue for slander. Back in 2002, Banon interviewed Strauss-Kahn and met him an apartment. According to an interview...

French writer Tristane Banon is to file a lawsuit for attempted rape against former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, her lawyer says.The lawyer, David Koubbi, said the suit referred to an incident in 2002 when Ms Banon went to interview Mr Strauss-Kahn in a flat in Paris. Mr Strauss-Kahn was recently freed from house arrest in New York in a separate alleged sex assault case. He denies assaulting a hotel maid in the US city on 14 May. It was shortly after Mr Strauss-Kahn was arrested in New York that Ms Banon came forward to say that he had tried to...

The lawyer of French novelist Tristane Banon says she will file a lawsuit accusing former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn of attempted rape. Tristane Banon's lawyer David Koubbi said the lawsuit will be filed in Paris on Tuesday. He said the complaint will relate to an incident that took place when Banon went to interview Strauss-Kahn in an apartment in Paris. Banon was 22 at the time. She has already publicly discussed the incident, saying Strauss-Kahn acted like a "chimpanzee on heat". Strauss-Kahn was arrested in New York in May on charges that he tried to sexually assault a...

Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s hopes of entering the French presidential race appeared to be over after a novelist who described him as a “rutting chimpanzee“ said she would make a criminal complaint of attempted rape. Tristane Banon, a 32-year-old journalist and writer, will file for charges on Tuesday over an alleged attack in a Paris apartment in 2003 during which she claims Strauss-Khan tried to unhook her bra and open her jeans. Her lawyer, David Koubbi said the complaint would reach the Paris prosecutor’s office by Wednesday. The announcement came just days after it emerged that the sexual assault case by an...

Within the disintegration of the Manhattan district attorney's case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn may be found sufficient lessons to occupy seminars on law, media, sex rehab and modern politics for a very long time. Let's start with the higher road of the law's role in what, from start to finish, has been a very low story. After Mr. Strauss-Kahn's arrest in May for his encounter with an immigrant maid in a room at the Sofitel Hotel on New York's West 44th Street, the Manhattan DA charged him with seven counts, including four felonies. Bear in mind that the accused was not...

A photo of the young woman at the link. http://www.newyorkdaily247.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=103:nigeria-elections-2011&tmpl=component&print=1 Hope this works. I am posting under unusual circumstances.

Two high-profile attacks on hotel maids are leading to a change in security at two Manhattan hotels: The Wall Street Journal reports that according to union officials, the Pierre Hotel and the Sofitel New York will equip their room attendants with panic buttons in case they are attacked. The Journal reports the change came after a meeting with union officials: "Let everybody in the world traveling to New York know that when they stay in a hotel room, the person cleaning that room is armed with a button that they can immediately press if you're stupid enough to get inappropriate,"...

The video below of Tristane Banon talking about what it was like when Dominique Strauss-Kahn came onto her is getting posted all around the internet now that DSK has been charged with sexual assault. [...] "It ended really badly. We ended up fighting. It finished really violently." "We fought on the floor. It wasn't a case of a couple of slaps. I kicked him, he unhooked my bra, he tried to open my jeans." [...] "For my first book I had to interview people about their biggest mistake...he didn't really answer but suggested we meet again. He asked me to...

Yes They Kahn!Dominique Strauss-Kahn and the other elevated souls of the governing class are above your bourgeois standards. Back when he was still the officially designated Next President of France and not an accused rapist, Dominique Strauss-Kahn was glimpsed at the annual IMF soccer tournament wearing a T-shirt emblazoned “YES, WE KAHN!” (Monsieur le directeur was not participating in the game: The field he likes to play requires more horizontal exertions, as even the deferential and protective French media have begun belatedly to acknowledge.) In consciously mimicking the slogan of another and very successful presidential candidate, the IMF boss and...

[ed note: Found! Under a hors d'oeuvres tray at a Tina Brown cocktail party, the first draft of Bernard Henri-Levy's Daily Beast cri de coeur on behalf of his ami Dominique Strauss-Kahn]Continued

Confined to a jail cell, his reputation in tatters and facing serious criminal charges, Dominique Strauss-Kahn is almost certainly on his way out as head of the International Monetary Fund. The main question is whether he’ll go willingly. --snip-- “He is obviously not in a position to run the IMF,” Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Tuesday in New York....