Amid the maelstrom that moved Dominique Strauss-Kahn from his global pedestal, one supporter remained steadfastly beside him, never appearing to be troubled by doubts over his innocence.
Anne Sinclair, 62, his wife, not only rushed to New York to be with him, but was instrumental in obtaining him bail.
“I have no doubts fundamentally but I’m very worried nevertheless,” she told Michel Taubman, a French author, after Mr Strauss-Kahn’s arrest. Taubman said last week: “I was struck by her total, absolute and unshakeable confidence in her husband.”
Ms Sinclair had provided similarly unflinching backing for her husband in 2008 when the International Monetary Fund launched an internal inquiry after he was accused of favouritism towards Piroska Nagy, an economist with whom he had had an affair.
This was by no means the first time that his sexual behaviour had been scrutinised. When Mr Strauss-Kahn was appointed managing director of the IMF, Jean Quatremer, the Brussels correspondent for Libération, the French daily, wrote: “Strauss-Kahn’s only real problem is his relationship with women. He is too pushy and often comes close to harassment.”
Advertisement
Aurélie Filippetti, a leading Socialist MP, said that Mr Strauss-Kahn once made a “very heavy, very insistent” attempt to seduce her.
But Ms Sinclair’s friends say that her love for him has never waned. And in New York she offered more than moral support. She is a French television journalist and the millionaire granddaughter of one of France’s greatest 20th- century art dealers, and used her wealth to put up bail of $6 million (£3.7 million) and to rent a house in the expensive Tribeca neighbourhood of New York. A home in the city was a condition for his Mr Strauss-Kahn’s release.
Her fortune also helped to pay for two of America’s most expensive lawyers, Benjamin Brafman and William W. Taylor III.
Mr Brafman is reported to charge up to $1,500 an hour and Mr Taylor about $1,000. Her lawyers are reported to have hired Guidepost Solutions, a firm of private investigators, to look into the maid’s background.
Ms Sinclair was also able to tap into a network of powerful friends in France, such as Robert Badinter, the former Justice Minister.