Guinean immigrant, Nafissatou “Nafi” Diallo, stood beside black church leaders in Brooklyn and before dozens of journalists and told of being allegedly forced into oral sex by Strauss-Kahn on May 14th in the over $3,000 a night, number 2806 suite at the Sofitel Hotel.
In previous media interviews Diallo said Strauss-Kahn emerged naked from a shower to “grab my breasts” and despite her pleas, forced her head down to his penis. She told Newsweek that he pulled her buttoned up uniform up around her thighs and tore down her pantyhose, gripping her crotch so hard that it was still red at the hospital, hours later.
He pushed her to her knees, her back to the wall, according to the Newsweek interview and forced his penis into her mouth, she said, and he gripped her head on both sides.
“He held my head so hard here,” she was quoted as saying, putting her hands to her head. “He was moving and making a noise. He was going like ‘uhh, uhh, uhh.’ He said, ‘Suck my’—I don’t want to say.”
The report from the hospital where Diallo was taken later for examination notes that “she felt something wet and sour come into her mouth and she spit it out on the carpet.”
“I got up,” Diallo told NEWSWEEK. “I was spitting. I run. I run out of there. I don’t turn back. I run to the hallway. I was so nervous; I was so scared. I didn’t want to lose my job.”
She said the alleged rape incident has left her and her 15-year-old daughter traumatized.
“We cry every day. We can’t sleep,” Diallo, who migrated to the U.S. in 2003 told the packed press conference in a quiet, nervous and hesitant voice.
The hotel maid, who earned $25 an hour plus tips cleaning rooms daily, also commented on some press reports that have turned her from a victim into a predator. “A lot of people calling me a lot of bad names. I hear a lot of things, a lot of bad things. I say ‘God why me, why me?’” she said.
Her public media blitz come as prosecutors have expressed doubts about her credibility, suggesting they may drop charges against Strauss-Kahn, 62.
He has denied seven charges of attempted rape and sexual assault and his defense team have called on prosecutors to drop the charges amid doubts over Diallo’s credibility.
Diallo’s lawyer, Kenneth Thompson, for his part said if prosecutors do not press charges then this client will slap Strauss-Kahn with a civil suit.
Strauss-Kahn is due back in court on August 23rd.
