May 18th, 2011

IMF Chief's Problems Just Got Worse: His West African Immigrant Victim Lived In AIDS/HIV Exclusive Apartment

Posted by: Barry Secrest
Published on May 18th, 2011 @ 10:10:19 am , using 448 words

Posted in Events and Issues: Credible Resources

New York Post

By JENNIFER BAIN and BOB FREDERICKS

Dominique Strauss-Kahn may have more to worry about than a possible prison sentence.

The IMF chief's alleged sex-assault victim lives in a Bronx apartment rented exclusively for adults with HIV or AIDS, The Post has learned.

The hotel maid, a West African immigrant, has occupied the fourth-floor High Bridge pad with her 15-year-old daughter since January -- and before that, lived in another Bronx apartment set aside by Harlem Community AIDS United strictly for adults with the virus and their families.

The Post has not been able to ascertain whether the maid, 32, has HIV/AIDS because of medical confidentiality laws.

But the agency rents apartments only for adults with the disease. A Harlem United worker said at least one adult in the household has to be HIV-positive or have AIDS to qualify for one of their units. A healthy adult with a child with HIV or AIDS is not eligible.

"The [current] apartment isn't rented under her name. Harlem [Community AIDS] United places their tenants in our building," explained an employee of the apartment building's property manager, Chaim Gross, of Brooklyn.

The maid had previously lived in another High Bridge apartment rented by Harlem United, a source said. She had moved there with her child in 2008.

According to the agency, it is not uncommon for people with HIV/AIDS to move around.

Her lawyer, Jeffrey Shapiro, and a close family friend said the chambermaid is a widow who lives alone with her daughter. Public records list her as the only adult in the current apartment and the only adult having lived in her previous apartment.

Neighbors also say it was just her and the child in both places.

The Harlem United workers who talked to The Post were not specifically addressing the maid's living situation, only their agency's housing policies. Officials at Harlem United declined to comment because of confidentiality.

The woman has accused France's leading presidential contender of forcing her to perform oral sex on him twice and then trying to rape her as she tried to clean his Sofitel hotel room in Times Square on Saturday.

She told cops that after he sodomized her, she spit out his semen on the floor, a law-enforcement source said. Investigators are running DNA tests on the sample.

According to the federal Centers for Disease Control: "It is possible for either partner to become infected with HIV through performing or receiving oral sex."

Strauss-Kahn's lawyers declined comment last night.

The humiliated, 62-year-old suspect was ordered held without bail Monday and placed under suicide watch at Rikers Island -- reduced to wearing shoes without laces and a medical device to make sure he's breathing.

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