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DSK Charged with 'Aggravated Pimping'

By Stephanie Rabiner, Esq. on March 26, 2012 | Last updated on March 21, 2019

French authorities have charged DSK with aggravated pimping.

Wait, what? Confused? Let's rewind. Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, now known as DSK, rose to fame in May, when a U.S. hotel maid accused him of sexual assault. New York prosecutors soon dropped the charges, but scandal followed the disgraced leader back home to France.

French authorities have now charged DSK with aggravated pimping, claiming to have unearthed information that ties him to a high-profile prostitution ring in the city of Lille.

Now that that's all cleared up, what is aggravated pimping?

This blogger isn't 100% sure, as she has no background in French law. However, authorities believe DSK was involved with a prostitution ring that illegally paid women with corporate funds. If French law is anything like U.S. law, this could be considered an aggravating circumstance, making the pimping a slightly different, more serious crime.

In fact, most states have a crime called "aggravated promotion of prostitution" -- a much stuffier term for the crime of aggravated pimping. It's considered worse than just being a pimp and receiving money through another's prostitution. It's pimping accompanied by aggravating circumstances.

In Texas, for example, aggravated pimping involves owning, investing in or controlling an "enterprise that uses two or more prostitutes." In Montana, it involves the prostitution of a child, a spouse or someone under the pimp's legal care. In Maine, the crime includes the use of drugs or threats to compel an individual to become or remain a prostitute.

So it appears that, when the French accuse DSK of aggravated pimping, they're accusing him of being a hardcore pimp. Or at least being slightly worse than your average pimp.

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