Strauss-Kahn dines out after bail restrictions eased

Former International Monetary Fund (IMF) boss Dominique Strauss-Kahn dined on pasta with black truffles in a swish Italian restaurant after being freed from house arrest by a New York court Friday.

Reuters/Allison Joyce

Strauss-Kahn’s wife Anne Sinclair and two friends joined him at Scalinatella, an Upper-East Side restaurant, which, according to staff, is occasionally visited by singing star Madonna.

The bill for four was 600 dollars (413 euros), according to the restaurant’s owner, and the three-course meal was washed down with a 116-dollar (80-euro) bottle of Tuscan red, Brunello di Montalcino.

Fellow diners reported that he seemed to be in a very good mood.

Earlier a judge had changed the conditions of his bail after prosecutors said that doubts about the credibility of his accuser had surfaced.

His one-million-dollar (600,000-euro) bail and five-million (3.4-million-euro) bond will now be returned and Strauss-Kahn is free to travel anywhere in the United States, although authorities will keep his passport, pending possible trial.

The restrictive bail conditions, which included wearing an ankle monitor and being confined to a Lower Manhattan townhouse with restricted sorties under the watch of armed guards, were lifted.

After doubts surfaced about the credibility of Nafissatou Diallo, the woman who has accused Strauss-Kahn of sexual assault, her lawyer, Kenneth Thompson, revealed previously unpublicised details of the investigation.

The medical examination had found bruising on her vagina and she may need surgery for a torn ligament on her shoulder, he said.

She did not know that her boyfriend was “a drug dealer”, Thompson claimed, following a New York Times report that a phone conversation with him, which was not translated from her native Fulani until Wednesday, seriously compromised her story.

The man is reported to be in jail in Arizona after being arrested trying to exchange counterfeit clothing for marijuana.

"She says words to the effect of, 'Don't worry, this guy has a lot of money. I know what I'm doing,'" the paper quotes an anonymous official as saying.