The chief judge said Mr Strauss-Kahn behaved as a client and had not paid the sex workers he met. He only benefitted from others paying them to be present for group parties, the judge added.

All but one of the many defendants were also acquitted. Rene Kojfer, the former public relations chief of Hotel Carlton in Lille, where some of the parties occurred was found guilty and given a one year suspended sentence.

Even the prosecutor had asked that the charges be dismissed. The prosecutor originally recommended against the charges, but the investigating magistrate judges overruled him, saying that Strauss-Kahn was a key planner of the parties and knew that the women who attended them were prostitutes. But the evidence at trial failed to show DSK knew they were prostitutes and he testified and denied knowing they were paid.

The prosecutor said he was disturbed by the disparate way DSK's trial was conducted. Only DSK's sexual practices were delved into by the prostitutes who testified, not those of the others on trial.

In France, judges do not have to accept the proseuctor's motion to dismiss. Ultimately, they arrived at the same conclusion. The evidence was not there. Five of the six women - including four prostitutes - had dropped their accusations against DSK because of a lack of evidence.

As the proseuctor said, judges work "with the penal code and not with the moral code."

Some background here and here.