The three-month DSK saga is all over bar the shouting, which continued outside the court house on Tuesday and continues from various women’s rights group as well as race-based ones.
But what, if anything, can we all gain from this miserable spectacle which damaged the reputations of Strauss-Kahn, Nafissatou Diallo and Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance?
When Alex posted her Tuesday column on our Facebook wall one of the commentators wrote the following: “It is cases like this that show how important it is to be honest and always ‘try’ to do the right thing. That way, if your integrity is ever called into question….they have limited amounts of bashing and questioning of your credibility.”
And that really is the abiding message for me. We can only expect that the justice system will work for us when we need its assistance if we have respected the truth in our own lives.
What was Superman’s motto? “Truth, Justice & the American Way.” And particularly in a case such as this, which comes down to “he said/she said” it was the abiding lack of truthfulness that doomed the case. Yes, Diallo’s own lies regarding her asylum application and various bank accounts clouded the water. But reading the 25-page dismissal motion from the prosecutor you can see on page 10 onwards that on June 28th her attorney admitted that not only had she lied to the investigators about her movements immediately after the sexual incident but she had also lied to the Grand Jury while being under oath. And frankly that was the case done and dusted right there.
How can an alleged rape victim who has lied under oath to a Grand Jury then testify in a criminal court and be believable? There’s the reasonable doubt. I’m just surprised it took almost a further two months for the case to be dismissed.
Over four years of my limited public life I’ve been the victim of lies about me and am grateful that in the end the truth always comes out. There’s rarely any shame in the truth, something that serves us all well in the end.
The DSK case doesn’t prove that liars can be raped and not receive justice, but it does prove that you can’t lie in court one time and hope to convince another court of your truthfulness.
