Prosecutor asks court to drop charges against Dominique Strauss-Kahn

The Manhattan District Attorney's Office has filed papers requesting that all charges be dropped in the sexual assault case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former chief of the International Monetary Fund.

According to The New York Times, the dismissal on recommendation motion was filed Monday afternoon in Manhattan Supreme Court.

“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 papers said. “If we do not believe her beyond a reasonable doubt, we cannot ask a jury to do so.”

Around the time that the motion was filed, a lawyer representing Strauss-Kahn's accuser, Nafissatou Diallo, spoke to reporters after a scheduled meeting with the DA's office.

“The Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance, has denied the right of a woman to get justice in a rape case,” Kenneth Thompson said, while Diallo stood at his side. “He has not only turned his back on this victim but he has also turned his back on the forensic, medical and other physical evidence in this case. If the Manhattan district attorney, who is elected to protect our mothers, our daughters, our sisters, our wives and our loved ones, is not going to stand up for them when they’re raped or sexually assaulted, who will?”

Strauss-Kahn's lawyers, William W. Taylor III and Benjamin Brafman, also issued a statement reacting to the motion.

“We have maintained from the beginning of this case that our client is innocent,” the statement said. “We also maintained that there were many reasons to believe that Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s accuser was not credible. Mr. Strauss-Kahn and his family are grateful that the district attorney’s office took our concerns seriously and concluded on its own that this case cannot proceed further. We look forward to attending the hearing on Tuesday.”

Strauss-Kahn is due in court Tuesday morning, and experts told The New York Post that "prosecution dismissal requests are always granted immediately."

Just hours before the DA filed the dismissal request, Thompson filed his own motion requesting that the Manhattan district attorney be removed from the case. But legal experts told the Times that Thompson's motion was unlikely to succeed.

Strauss-Kahn was accused of sexually assaulting Diallo on May 14, when the 32-year-old Guinean immigrant came to clean his suite at the Sofitel hotel in New York City. But the case changed drastically a few weeks later, when prosecutors announced that Diallo had lied to them about her background and personal life. Until his arrest in May, Strauss-Kahn was seen as a leading contender to be the next president of France.