Former IMF chief Strauss-Kahn acquitted in pimping trial

Former FMI head Dominique Strauss-Kahn enters his car as he leaves his apartment in Paris, France, June 12, 2015.[Photo/Agencies]

LILLE, France - Former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn was cleared of pimping charges on Friday in France, putting an end to four years of legal drama that began with a sexual assault charge in a New York hotel room.

The trial hinged on sex parties that took place in the midst of the global financial crisis _ events Strauss-Kahn described as much-needed "recreational sessions" at a time of intense pressure to steer the world through economic peril. He said he did not know the women who took part were prostitutes.

"All that for this?" Strauss-Kahn said as he rose to leave the courtroom with his girlfriend and adult daughter. "What a waste."

In often sordid testimony, the women involved in the sex parties described sometimes-brutal nights that, they said, were not fun for them at all.

The panel of judges ruled that Strauss-Kahn, a one-time French presidential hopeful whose political career was tarnished by the allegations, was not involved in hiring the women or paying them.

Prostitution is currently legal in France, but prostitutes are often arrested and charged for soliciting in public. Brothels, pimping and the sale of sex by minors is illegal.

The verdict was the last step in four years of legal drama for Strauss-Kahn that began when a New York hotel maid accused him of sexual assault in 2011, killing his ambitions to be French president. That case was later settled out of court.

The New York allegations shook France _ both because it lost a leading presidential contender and because it splashed allegations about a French public figure's private life onto media worldwide.

It prompted expectations among many women in France that the country would start holding male politicians accountable for infidelity or other sexual misconduct that had long been ignored.