Au revoir, Dominique Strauss-Kahn as betrayed wife Anne Sinclair ‘throws him out of Paris home’

By ALISTAIR MUNRO
Published on 29/06/2012 12:18

SHE had stood by him through allegations of raping a hotel maid, sexual harassment of a French writer and – most recently – involvement in a prostitution ring.

• Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn and his wife have separated

• Strauss-Kahn’s wife Anne Sinclair reportedly threw him out of their Paris home

• Strauss-Kahn is currently under investigation regarding sex parties he attended

But now it seems the wife of former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, 63, has had enough.

Anne Sinclair, 64, a multimillionaire former TV presenter, has reportedly thrown her husband of more than 20 years out of their home in central Paris.

It is another blow for Mr Strauss-Khan who, just a year ago, was being tipped to leave the IMF to challenge for the French presidency.

The online website of the weekly magazine Closer is quoting a source saying the pair had been living in separate apartments for about a month.

But Ms Sinclair, an art heiress who recently relaunched her media career as a news editor at the Huffington Post’s French edition, managed to keep the split quiet despite growing speculation their marriage was over.

The disgraced former finance chief – known as DSK – is said to have moved in with a friend elsewhere in the French capital.

News of the alleged separation has followed weeks of media speculation that the relationship was under increasing pressure and reports that Mr Strauss-Kahn was depressed from his spectacular fall from grace.

One friend is reported to have said: “He’s in a bad way. It’s very sad. He’s mostly just at home on his own while Anne is out and about with her new job. He’s shunned by everybody.”

Another friend described Mr Strauss-Kahn as “depressed and destroyed”.

Ms Sinclair last week agreed to a photoshoot alone for the front page of Paris Match magazine – which observers claim was a sign she was preparing the ground for news of the separation.

Mr Strauss-Kahn was once hotly tipped to be France’s next socialist president, but his career disintegrated following his arrest in New York in May 2011 on charges of attempting to rape a hotel maid.

The criminal case was dropped over concerns about the credibility of Nafissatou Diallo, 33, but he admitted that a sex act had taken place.

The maid is now pursuing a civil case against him after the Bronx Supreme Court threw out his claims of diplomatic immunity.

At that time, Ms Sinclair stood by her husband, but it is understood she became less supportive amid mounting allegations in France. They included claims by French writer Tristane Banon that he had tried to rape her in a Paris flat.

Prosecutors ruled that there was sufficient evidence to press sexual harassment charges, but could not pursue the case because the events took place more than three years previously.

Prosecutors then opened an investigation into a prostitution ring operating out of Lille, in northern France, in which Mr Strauss-Kahn is being implicated.

He faces “aggravated pimping” charges as prosecutors seek to determine the nature of his relationship with prostitutes when he attended sex parties in northern France, Paris and Washington in 2010 and 2011.

The charges carry a maximum 20-year prison term.

Last month, the inquiry was widened to include a possible gang-rape charge after a prostitute told them Mr Strauss-Kahn and friends had forced her to have sex in a group when she came to Washington to meet him in December 2010.

The woman has not filed a formal complaint.

Another call girl told investigators that Mr Strauss-Kahn and his male friends treated orgies “like cattle markets” and had referred to women as “equipment” in one message to a friend.

He denies any knowledge that the women at the orgies were prostitutes. His lawyer has argued that “they were all naked at the time” – and he has told police there was “no brutality” involved.

His career at the head of the Washington-based IMF was cut short when he was arrested in New York last year.

The scandal destroyed his hopes of running for French president in the April-May 2012 election for the Socialist Party, which instead won power under François Hollande.

Lawyers for the couple have said they intend to sue Closer magazine for invasion of privacy over the report.

“Dominique Strauss-Kahn and Anne Sinclair have decided to sue this publication for invasion of privacy,” legal representatives Frederique Baulieu, Richard Malka and Henri Leclerc said in a statement.