As Dominique Strauss-Kahn's accuser Nafissatou Diallo wages her media campaign to press the Manhattan DA's office to prosecute the former IMF head for sexual assault, an ex-lover of Strauss-Kahn's tells Swiss magazine L'illustré that Diallo's attorneys contacted her and asked her if Strauss-Kahn was ever violent, or if he forced her to have an abortion. "The questions were truly salacious, surgical. He proposed that I meet his client. I refused," the woman identified as Marie-Victorine M. told the magazine. "What is violence? A man who pushes you against a wall and who hugs you, is that violent?" she asks, "For me, this is not violent…neither physically nor verbally."
Marie-Victorine allegedly had a nine-month fling with Strauss-Kahn in 1997, when she was 23 and he was the mayor of Sarcelles, France. Describing Strauss-Kahn as "a man who loves sex, who has a huge sexual appetite," she also believes that what happened in the Sofitel suite in May was coerced: "I think there was a relationship between them, a forced relationship. I don't know if he raped her…Dominique took me sometimes in a very brusque manner…it was about passion, not about brutality." She also stated she'd be willing to testify against Strauss-Kahn, but thinks it would benefit the defense more than the prosecution.
Their relationship, a closely guarded secret, ended in a fight outside of a friend of Strauss-Kahn's apartment: "I noticed my sweater was ripped and that I had hurt my hand during our dispute…I no longer remember the words that we exchanged that night, but when my friend saw me arrive, she found me in a pitiful condition."
Strauss-Kahn is due back in court on August 23, after the prosecution delayed the August 3 hearing so it could have more time to investigate the charges.
