The Hotel Carlton pimping trial in Lille has heard of the power exerted by older men and business figures over destitute women in the northern French city, some of whom had been abused as children, and who found themselves passed around men in hotel rooms, apartments and as the “dessert course” at business lunches, reports The Guardian.
The trial is best known for one of its defendants, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, ex-head of the International Monetary Fund, who is accused of aiding and abetting prostitution by having group sex with paid women brought to him in Europe and the US by businessmen friends. He strongly denies the pimping charge, admitting group sex but saying he did not know women at the orgies were prostitutes.
Before the trial turns its attention to Strauss-Kahn next week, judges have begun hearing the stories of prostitutes in Lille.
One of the women, known as Jade, was a prostitute as part of the Hotel Carlton network in Lille before later being taken by businessmen. She says she was offered to Strauss-Kahn for orgies in Paris and Washington when he was head of the IMF – encounters she described as “carnage”.
Described as having been the victim of child sexual abuse and having had a chaotic childhood, she told the court how she reluctantly turned to prostitution when she separated from her partner. “I opened the fridge, I knew there was going to be an inquiry into custody of the kids and I saw that the fridge was empty.” She dialled the number on a small ad. Her first encounter was a lorry driver. “I was scared to death.” She began to work in a brothel just over the Belgian border run by Dominique Alderweireld, also known as Dodo the Pimp, another defendant in the trial.
She worked at night in a basement room in the brothel with her baby asleep in a nearby room. When she could, she would stop and get temping work.
At the club she met Rene Kojfer, 70, the flamboyant head of public relations for the luxury Hotel Carlton. He is alleged to have passed financially needy women around prominent men – including a dentist, police chief, lawyers and hotel bosses – in Lille for sex.