UDPATE: The charges have been dropped.
I'm not sure how you proceed with the case when the only witness is this compromised. As a juror, how do you get beyond the conclusion that there is a very real chance she's lying again? From Reuters:
Prosecutors in May had said the maid's complaint was "truthful" and "consistent." But the case began to crumble when prosecutors found Diallo had lied on her immigration forms about a gang rape in Guinea, lied on her tax forms and gave three different versions of events surrounding the encounter in the Sofitel Hotel in Times Square.Lying about the rape case is perhaps the biggest indictment here. It's a rape case, and the alleged victim has lied before, to the government no less, about being raped. And while it's entirely possible that she lied on her immigration form because she really wanted to stay in the US, and that in spite of that she was actually raped by Strauss-Kahn, that's not enough to sell a jury. There is a reasonable doubt that this woman lies. More from News24 and AFP:
"The nature and number of the complainant's falsehoods leave us unable to credit her version of events beyond a reasonable doubt, whatever the truth may be about the encounter between the complainant and the defendant," the court papers said.
"If we do not believe her beyond a reasonable doubt, we cannot ask a jury to do so."
One issue was her constantly changing story about what she did immediately after the alleged attack, ranging from hiding fearfully in a corridor to returning to the room to clean after Strauss-Kahn left.
Most seriously, Diallo admitted that she had entirely made up a story during her asylum application to the United States about being gang raped in Guinea.
During one session with prosecutors, she repeated the story with so much emotion that "she cried, spoke hesitatingly, and... even laid her head face down on a table in front of her".
Later, she said "she had entirely fabricated the attack".
"Most significant is her ability to recount that fiction as a fact with complete conviction," the motion said.
"That she has previously persuaded seasoned prosecutors and investigators that she was the victim of another serious and violent - but false - sexual assault, with the same demeanour that she would likely exhibit at trial, is fatal."
