Report on NY maid's exam riles Strauss-Kahn team

[August 17, 2011]  NEW YORK (AP) -- Lawyers for former International Monetary Fund leader Dominique Strauss-Kahn fought back Tuesday after a media report said a medical examination listed "assault" and "rape" as the causes of injuries to a hotel housekeeper who accuses him of sexual assault.

The exam, conducted at a hospital shortly after maid Nafissatou Diallo's encounter with Strauss-Kahn at a luxurious Manhattan hotel in May, found part of her genitals was reddened and she reported shoulder pain, according to the French newspaper L'Express. The newspaper published an account of her hospital record online Tuesday, accompanying an interview with her lawyer.

In tears, Diallo told a doctor she'd been pushed to the floor and forced to perform oral sex by a guest at the Sofitel hotel, where she worked, according to the newspaper. Tests later found a ligament in her shoulder had been damaged, her lawyer has said.

"Cause of injuries: Assault. Rape," the medical report reads, according to L'Express.

The account echoes allegations in the criminal case against Strauss-Kahn and in Diallo's lawsuit against him.

Strauss-Kahn, a former French presidential candidate, denies the allegations, and his lawyers have said anything that happened between the two wasn't forced. They said Tuesday that it's "misleading and deceitful" to portray the account of Diallo's hospital exam as bolstering the charges against him.

"The hospital report is based almost exclusively on the word of the complaining witness, who has been proven, time and again, not to be credible," and it doesn't establish a forceful encounter, attorneys Benjamin Brafman and William W. Taylor said in a statement.

The doctor's findings are "common conditions consistent with many possible causes other than a sexual assault," they said.

Diallo's lawyer, Kenneth Thompson, wasn't in his office Tuesday but said by email that it's "utter nonsense" to suggest that Strauss-Kahn's encounter with his client was consensual.

"The truth will come out at trial, and we look forward to that trial," Thompson said.

Strauss-Kahn, who's 62 and married, was charged with attempted rape and other crimes after Diallo, 32, told authorities he'd attacked her May 14 after she arrived to clean his suite, thinking it was empty. But the criminal case hit a roadblock last month after prosecutors said the maid had lied to them about her background and her actions right after the time she claimed she was attacked, raising doubts about her believability.

Diallo, in television and magazine interviews last month, said she's telling the truth about being attacked by Strauss-Kahn.

Diallo also told prosecutors a false story of having been gang-raped in her native Guinea, an impoverished West African nation. She says now she was raped but not in the manner she described on an asylum application.

The Manhattan district attorney's office says it's still investigating and hasn't decided whether to press ahead with the Strauss-Kahn case.

In the meantime, Diallo (whose name is pronounced na-fee-SAH'-too dee-AH'-loh) decided to press her claims in another forum by suing Strauss-Kahn last week. She's seeking unspecified damages in the civil case.

The Associated Press does not generally name accusers in sexual assault cases unless they agree to be named or identify themselves publicly, as Diallo has done.

[Associated Press; By JENNIFER PELTZ]

Jennifer Peltz can be reached at http://twitter.com/jennpeltz.

Associated Press writer Colleen Long contributed to this report.

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