Officials: Strauss-Kahn on suicide watch in jail

IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn (C) is taken out of a police station in New York on May 15, 2011. Strauss-Kahn was charged Sunday with attempting to rape a New York chambermaid, unleashing a scandal which could bury his long-held ambitions to be elected the president of France. AFP PHOTO/Jewel Samad (Photo credit should read JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images) / Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images

NEW YORK - A law enforcement official and a union official say International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn is under a suicide watch in jail.

Norman Seabrook heads New York City's corrections officer union. He told The Associated Press on Tuesday that Strauss-Kahn was under the watch at Rikers Island.

A law enforcement official confirmed that Strauss-Kahn was placed under watch after undergoing a mental health evaluation. The official spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of prisoners' medical information.

The official says the 62-year-old Strauss-Kahn did not try to harm himself. He was arrested Saturday in the alleged sex attack of a hotel maid and was held without bail on Monday.

French react to IMF arrest: Shock, anger at U.S.
IMF chief jailed alone at Rikers Island

Strauss-Kahn spent an uneventful night at the Rikers Island complex after being denied bail Monday, corrections officials said.

In asking that he be kept behind bars on charges he tried to rape a hotel maid, prosecutors had warned that the wealthy banker might flee to France and put himself beyond the reach of U.S. law, like the filmmaker Roman Polanski.

Defense lawyers have insisted there was no force involved and predicted Strauss-Kahn would be vindicated. Still, his arrest and detention have sent shock waves through the financial world, as well as French politics and culture.

"[He] has an almost mythical stature right now," Eswar Prasad, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, told CBS News. "So it did come as a shock because, after all, this is the man who was the head of what has become the most powerful international financial institution."

Austria's finance minister suggested Tuesday that Strauss-Kahn consider stepping down to avoid damaging the IMF, which provides emergency loans to countries in severe distress and tries to maintain global financial stability.

"Considering the situation, that bail was denied, he has to figure out for himself that he is hurting the institution," Maria Fekter said as she arrived at a meeting of European finance ministers in Brussels.

IMF chief held without bail in sex assault case
IMF head no stranger to sex assault accusations
Couric & Co.: The Strauss-Kahn media circus begins
IMF head submits to DNA test in sex attack probe
Lawyer: IMF head denies N.Y. sex-assault charges

[ynobasedrum]

The IMF is a banking cartel that enslaves countries with loans that can never be repaid and than when the country defaults the IMF seizes their social services, economy and natural resources. Thank you IMF, you rape us on a daily basis.

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[teak54]

Prejudice now against French in general and against DSK in particular is nauseating. Suicide watch of new detainees in a jail cell is just a routine and US officials and media are exaggerating it as a sensation for ignorant readers.

[cepe10-2009]

Sounds a lot like the duke false allegation case...., this maid has a lot of explaining to do how she was "forced" by an old man to perform oral sex... give me a break...

[samXXkiley]

coucou,
l'acharnement des m?dias reste inexplicable
DSK, est aux mains de la justice, il doit ?tre trait? decemment, quelques soient les charges retenues contre lui,
c'est ? la justice de juger DSK et s?rement pas les m?dias, ni les gens d'ailleurs,
il demeure innocent, jusqu'? preuve de sa culpabilit?

........................................
the relentlessness of the media remains unexplained
DSK is in the hands of justice, he must have to be treated decently, regardless of the charges against DSK
it belongs to justice, to judge DSK and certainly not the media nor the people elsewhere,
He remains innocent until proven culpability
"au revoir"

[rahalmessaoud]

this is which arrived when mingling with a maidroom ans I think so she tell truth and this is the end for career politic DSK in American we don't play with abus sexuel

[voxpopulus]

Many of you should get your head out of your posteriors. This is about what did, or didn't happen, between a man and a woman. It is not about nationality or race. Take off your own blinkers, bigots.

[theskeptical1]

>>" . . .his arrest and detention have sent shock waves through the financial world, as well as French politics and culture."

Monsieur Strauss-Kahn's predicament is indeed a terrible embarrassment to Frenchmen the world over.

Namely, that he didn't run away fast enough.

[one4gipper]

Leave it to a Frog to quit before the fight even begins.

If you like the French, put up your hand. If you are French, put up both hands.

Ours Generals had consistent views of the French. Norman Schwarzkoph said, "Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without your accordion."

George S Patton favored us with this, "I would rather have a division of Germans in front of me that a French one behind me."

Finally, Dwight D Eisenhower says it best in a letter, "It isn't this operations that's wearing me down -- it's the petty intrigue and the necessity of dealing with little, selfish, conceited worms that call themselves men. All these Frogs have a single thought -- ME."

[curse914]

Our nation would not exist in its current form without the French having bankrupted themselves to fund our Revolutionary War. Your ignorance of history aside, lets hope this Elite (French or otherwise) exercises self deliverance.

Base on the intensity with which you grossly exaggerate a stereotype, I would have to guess that it is you who has much cowardice encoded in your DNA just as this rapist has rape encoded into his.

[usadvisor101]

Good job smearing WWII history.

I am sure even the few french that may have some things in common with you, now think you are a complete moron

[petruspintassilgo]

Dear Sirs, at first reports issued mentioned sexual oral and anal rape committed by Mr S-K. Somehow I found this already hard to belief. Then things became scaled down to rape, without being explicit, and now we are already talking about an attempt to rape. Who knows how far it will be reduced even more. Perhaps it will end in a slap on the bottom by Mr S-K. Not that this should be tolerated, but there there is a difference in one or the other scenario. Perhaps tere is no truth in the whole story at all. One should be extremely cautious when somebody in such a position is prosecuted or placed in custody on suspicion of a serious crime.
If indeed Mr Strauss-Kahn is guilty he should be punished and punished severely, but untill proven guilty everybody should be aware that someone so highly placed in society will always be very vulnerable for gossips, false accusations and other sorts of attacks on his or her person. I believe that things should have been investigated more thorough before placing the accusations and arresting Mr S-K.

[mini_101]

I agree.

There is a flaw in the legal system that the police must arrest DSK before facts are in place. This is why he should be allowed the bail.

I used to believe the US is the safest place for me to be, as I trust the legal system, etc. I have been educated in the US for a long time. After this incident, I feel that I shall be vulnerable anywhere in the world as a foreigner.

In some Asian countries, the courts are likely to find the foreigners would be guilty party. If a local female party is involved, then most likely the white man must be guilty. So I was told, as an expat living in these areas. The fact that the foreigner cannot speak the local language to explain himself and the policemen often are not comfortable with English makes it more so easier for the police to profile the situation.

Why is DSK compared to Roman Polanski? In this case, DSK is the vulnerable party.

I think not allowing him the bail would make French people angry.


I also do not understand Sarkozy. There are conspiracy theories that he set DSK up for this to prevent him competing for the presidential campaign.

Sarkozy can prove himself innocent from these conspiracy theories by asking the US Court as French President, to allow him a bail and let him continue his IMF post and possibly running for the presidential campaign in France.

Because DSK is a foreigner, his own country shall defend him, or help him in US Soil.

[rafaeldrc]

This event forebodes a lot about our society. Though we think highly of our system of Justice and Freedom of the Speech (vies-a-vis, the Press), the actuality thus demonstrates that we, as a society, have progressed little beyond the days of Bonnie and Clyde, Dillinger and Al Capone. Osama Bin Ladin was given more respect plus a dignified burial (ker-plunk) for a crime perpetrated beyond argument. Mr. Strauss-Kahn is but a suspect, little more than 48 hours past the alleged altercation, Bin Laden a renegade on the run (hiding) for nearly ten years but the Frenchman is hanged in public by our lynch-mob hungry Press with little evidence that this could be more than a misunderstanding.

Voulez-vous?

Oui!!
Hmmm! Gots money?
NYPD.

Though the European system is classiest to the marrow, ministers are over educated with egos oozing of self-centered pride, the fact is that a person is innocent until proven guilty. Our Press is always in hunt of a method of selling commercials in the guise of news. Americans need to realize that what we consider Freedom of Speech is flawed in several ways and this is one of them: Parading a suspect as though the facts are collected and the jury has deliberated is an injustice to the principle that one is innocent until proven guilty. It is better to withhold until the facts are in, which they were not and still aren't. We're a nation of many stupid people,most who won't read any sort of vindication because it doesn't sell print, lynch printing does sell print.

Maybe he did it, maybe not, but one thing is sure, Bin Laden deserved this treatment but they treated the terrorist with more honor and dignity than Mr. Strauss-Kahn.

What a bunch of self-serving Hippocrates we are as a nation but we're proud to be American.

[mini_101]

I completely agree with you.

What if he is completely innocent? Yes, too early for the facts to be in place. A few hours after the arrest, DSK's career is already damaged. If the courts find him innocent, how can he re-establish his name and career? What has media done to him?
I also think he should be allowed to continue his current post at IMF, and continue with the legal process until found guilty of the alleged crimes. The comparison with Roman Polanski by the prosecution makes me wonder about them. RP is a movie director. DSK is a high profile bureaucrat. The police found him on the plane because he phoned the hotel. So why is he not allowed the bail? It's not the Board of IMF who decided that DSK cannot continue his job, but it was the Judge Jackson who decided for IMF on that one.

If DSK establishes his innocence, and if he loses his job over this, the US government will have to pay for his legal cost, and his current salary until his retirement age--whatever that may be.

All sounds so strange to me as a woman, that a man would go so far violently to attempt to rape someone and let her get away with out actually having sex?

Yes, DSK is treated no better than a thug in NYC. Is this all tactics on intimidating the defendant? Why do they have to put him in Riker's Island jail? I read someone who wrote, "This is not a place for a white man who is accused or raping a black woman."

I think media has gone far speculating DSK's suicide attempt? I don't think so. So ridiculous. Is this what the media is trying to achieve?