The hotel maid who accused Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexually assaulting her is now having some interesting new accusations thrown right back at her. The thrower? None other than the New York Post, which this weekend ran a slew of stories and a 1,048-point-font front-page headline reading, "DSK MAID A HOOKER" (emphasis theirs). This, naturally, has prompted that very "DSK maid" to sue the Post for libel.
The facts: On Saturday, the paper reported that the housekeeper "was doing double duty as a prostitute, collecting cash on the side from male guests"; the next day, it wrote that she has also "continued to work as a prostitute in a Brooklyn hotel where she was stashed by prosecutors." Bold claims, all of them! But where are the Post's intrepid journalists getting all this intel? From an exclusive anonymous source, of course.
"There is information … of her getting extraordinary tips, if you know what I mean. And it's not for bringing extra f—king towels," a source close to the defense investigation said yesterday.
The woman was allegedly purposely assigned to the Midtown hotel by her union because it knew she would bring in big bucks.
"When you're a chambermaid at Local 6, when you first get to the US, you start at the motels at JFK [Airport]. You don't start at the Sofitel," the source said. "There's a whole squad of people who saw her as an earner."
The woman also had "a lot of her expenses — hair braiding, salon expenses — paid for by men not related to her," the source said.
The maid is accusing the Post of committing libel "in an apparent desperate attempt to bolster its rapidly plunging sales," which, to anyone who's seen the final season of The Wire (or ever picked up a copy of the New York Post), doesn't sound like too much of a stretch. The suit alleges that:
"All of these statements are false, have subjected the plaintiff to humiliation, scorn and ridicule throughout the world by falsely portraying her as a prostitute or as a woman who trades her body for money and they constitute defamation and libel per se."
Your move, Rupert!