Update July 2: Asylum seeker was a hooker, here. I wonder how she got into the US in the first place? New English Review has a story today too, here. Case shows dark underbelly of African asylum seeking world, here.
Update: Just received Debbie Schlussel’s much juicier post on this story, here.
You would have to be living under a rock not to have heard about the allegations back in May about the head of the International Monetary Fund’s arrest in New York City for supposedly raping a hotel maid from Guinea.
Now, today, the case is falling apart due to “discrepancies” in the maid’s story including lies she has admitted to making on an application for asylum. So what else is new!
Should we expect the truth about rapes and persecutions in Africa?
If this woman hadn’t tried to go for the big bucks by claiming rape this time and thus generating a more thorough look at her sob story, she would surely have had her asylum application zip through the system and she would be on her way to American citizenship. But, boo hoo, it looks like she could end up being deported (after serving some jail time). She is also alleged to have been connected with an illegal drug ring.
Here is what the New York Times reported and below NBC tells us more of the story. I bet if you went back to the NYT readers would find much gushing sympathy for the maid in previous accounts.
NYT:
Prosecutors disclosed that the woman had admitted lying in her application for asylum from Guinea; according to the letter, she “fabricated the statement with the assistance of a male who provided her with a cassette recording” that she memorized. She also said that her claim that she had been the victim of a gang rape in Guinea was also a lie.
The woman also acknowledged that she had misrepresented her income to qualify for her housing, and had declared a friend’s child — in addition to her own daughter — as a dependent on tax returns to increase her tax refund.
Wouldn’t you love to know who gave her the cassette recording with her story pre-recorded! Was it someone with an NGO? Maybe an asylum lawyer?
And, don’t you just wonder if they vary those tapes at least a little bit for each of their ‘clients’ or does this woman’s story match closely scores of other asylum claims from Africa?
Now here is NBC’s version with more of the story:
The letter also discusses inconsistencies on the maid’s application for asylum from Guinea, where she is from. The lies, which were made under penalty of perjury, could expose her to federal charges.
In the asylum application, and to prosecutors, the maid claimed her family was persecuted and harassed by Guinea’s dictatorial regime, and that police and government soldiers had destroyed her home and beaten her and her husband.
She later admitted to prosecutors that the information was a lie, the letter said.
The letter also suggests that she falsely claimed to have been gang raped in Guinea.
While recounting that previous rape story to prosecutors, the maid cried and “appeared to be markedly distraught when recounting the incident.”
But in subsequent interviews, “she admitted that the gang rape had never occurred,” the letter said.
Readers the asylum system (part of the refugee program) is being widely abused.