Pimping investigation against Strauss-Kahn to continue in French court
A court in France has rejected a bid by lawyers to have charges against Dominique Strauss-Kahn dropped over his alleged participation in a prostitution ring, CNN reported, citing a court official.
The decision of the court in Douai that the investigation -- in what is known in France as the "Carlton affair" -- will continue follows a string of criminal cases in which the former chief of the International Monetary Fund had managed to put sexual misconduct claims behind him.
A lawyer for Strauss-Kahn, Henri Leclerc, told CNN that the defense planned to appeal the court's decision.
The scandals sidelined the onetime French finance minister's prospects of becoming France's next president.
Strauss-Kahn does not deny that he attended sex parties at the Hotel Carlton in the northern city of Lille. But, his lawyers said, he did not know that the young women at the parties were being paid for sex.
So, to charge Strauss-Kahn with aggravated pimping is "unhealthy, sensationalist and not without a political agenda," his lawyers argued.
But on Wednesday, a court in Douai ruled the charges will stand, said Guillaume Maigret, general secretary of the court.
Frederique Baulieu, a lawyer for Strauss-Kahn, told CNN affiliate BFM-TV outside the court that the defense's request for annulment of the case had been well founded.
"We will continue -- we are certain that Dominique Strauss-Kahn will be cleared of all of the accusations that were made against him," she said. "The one thing I can tell you is that today's decision is not a judicial victory."