Oh what a a tangled web we weave when first we practice to.. well.. pimp out prostitutes!!

Poor Dominique... :-)

Susoni

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Dominique Strauss-Kahn took the stand Tuesday to refute charges of aggravated pimping, but was largely overshadowed by testimony from a prostitute who said she was hired to have sex with him in a Paris hotel in 2010.

The woman, Mounia Rabou, was testifying before the court in Lille, the northern French town where prosecutors say some sex parties took place. Rabou said that there was no mention of money or payment in front of Strauss-Kahn the night at the Hotel Murano in Paris, only in a taxi afterward.

“It was pretty clear,” that she and “the other women there that evening were there for sexual relations,” she said. “I was just there to prostitute myself.”

The former French finance minister has begun three days of testimony to try and prove his innocence and — at least partially — revive his battered reputation. DSK, as he’s known across France, resigned as chief of the International Monetary Fund in 2011 after he was arrested in New York, accused of sexually assaulting a hotel maid. Those U.S. charges were dropped later that year only for him to be charged with “aggravated pimping” by French prosecutors investigating the so-called Carlton Affair — named for the Lille hotel where some of the parties took place — in 2012.

Since then, he has sought to revive his career in the private sector. It’s been a difficult road to redemption. His investment firm was declared bankrupt in November after his partner died in an apparent suicide and Luxembourg is looking into the group’s collapse.

His consulting firm, Parnasse, primarily advises governments. It had revenues of 2.4 million euros ($2.7 million) last year, he said.

Strauss-Kahn told the judge the frequency of the Lille parties he attended has been grossly exaggerated in the press. While prostitution is legal in France, procuring women for others is a crime.

“When one reads about this, one gets the impression that this was frenetic activities, the dates are so mixed up,” he said. “It was four times a year for three years, nothing more.”

Rabou said she cried at one point during her time with Strauss-Kahn in Paris, but that it was consensual sex as she needed the money. “It was only for the money,” she said.