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Philippe Wojazer / Reuters, file
Richard Descoings, head of the Paris Institute for Political Studies, pictured in 2009.
A prominent French academic, Richard Descoings, was found dead in the nude in a New York hotel room on Tuesday afternoon. New York police have opened an investigation because they believe the circumstances of his death are suspicious.
A law enforcement source told Reuters that the body of Descoings, director of the prestigious Institute of Political Studies in Paris and a member of France's Council of State, a government advisory body, was found Tuesday afternoon in his room at the Michelangelo Hotel in midtown Manhattan.
Descoings was in New York to attend a conference at Columbia University but did not show up on Tuesday morning when the conference was due to begin, the source said.
Colleagues subsequently phoned the hotel. When staff members first went to his room, they believed they heard snoring and let the matter drop.
When Descoings still did not appear at the conference, hotel staff again visited his room and this time opened the door. Inside, they found Descoings' nude body and the room in disarray. A law enforcement official told NBCNewYork.com that some of Descoing’s belongings were discovered on a third-floor landing of the hotel below his 7th-floor window.
The law enforcement source told Reuters that police were treating the circumstances of Descoings' death as suspicious. While there was no indication of forced entry into his room, there were indications that alcohol had been consumed, and also indications that more than one person may have been in the room with Descoings.
In addition to alcohol, medications were found in the room, NBCNewYork.com reported, citing a law enforcement source. Descoings' wallet was missing, but his credit cards were found, the source said.
The institute that Descoings led, known in French as the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris (or colloquially as "Sciences Po") is one of France's most distinguished academic institutions and widely regarded as an elite school for future high-ranking officials and politicians.
In Paris, Descoings death was called an “irreparable loss,” by colleagues, Le Parisien newspaper reported.
The investigation into the death of Descoings will be the second major investigation in a year to be launched by New York police involving a major French personality.
Last year, New York police arrested the head of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, after a chambermaid at a Times Square area hotel accused him of sexual assault. The charges against Strauss-Kahn were later dropped.
Strauss-Kahn, who once was a potential candidate for the French presidency, is now under investigation by French authorities over alleged involvement with a prostitution ring in the northern French city of Lille.
Strauss-Kahn was once a professor at the "Sciences Po" institute.
NBCNewYork's Jonathan Dienst and Shimon Prokupecz as well as Reuters contributed to this report.
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Wow those French politicians need to stay out of NYC.
evidense of another person (read: 2nd source of semen) was noted in the room. Wallet (and cash) missing.
Sounds like the French poof and his boyfriend for a night had a wild time and his heart gave out. The male prostitute grabbed the cash and split.
C'mon, the guy's from France.
It is possible that he had a sex partner that he had hooked up with who decided to slip him a "Mickey" so as to gain access to all his valuables, bank account info, personal info etc. and they slipped him just a bit too much to go safely with the alcohol he had consumed and sent him into the "BIG SLEEP"!!!
First DSK, and now this! I suspect Al Maid-a.
Sounds like he may have hooked up with the wrong call girl-or boy.
Looks like a whack job to me. He must have pissed off the military industrial complex for not being pro-war enough.
Escort: 1 - Elite Frenchman: 0
Suspicious? Do ya think? His stuff scattered four floors down?
sounds like the makings of a john lecarre mystery="revenge of the chambermaids"
'john lcarre'? Oh, you mean 'John le Carre', right?
The 5'10" Blonde maid won this time............
Nah, it was the butler.
You mean the "Butt Lure" ;-)
My guess is that he was enjoying the services of a hooker when he stroked out. The hooker panicked and tried to make it look like a robbery.
Make it look like a robbery by robbing the guy.
Yes, I tend to agree with jgbiggs. The hooker probably removed his/her fee from the Frenchman's wallet after he expired on the bed. What a way to go! Hopefully he got his rocks off one last time before the big send off. Yep! From the description of the chambermaid it sounds like he stroked out.
+1, Unbelievable.
And let's take a moment and wonder why any country would pride itself on having an "elite" institute to train politicians and political officials...Sheesh.
Let's take another moment and wonder if there is any connection between last years "ex-Po" member's difficulty in a New York hotel and this years!!! Elite poitical grooming school...what are they training for???
The French say they always do their best work between the sheets, right? Well, at least ze French la femme do! The guys just talk politics...LOL!
Good point SSavage...we don't do that in this country, do we?
Isn't that the truth; ours are bad enough - being churned out of Harvard & Yale - and each and everyone of the them has ZERO idea what the rank & file/proletariate really want or need - as in - leave us as much alone as possible and leave our wallets WITH OUR BODIES!
LOL Elk - I should have said hopefully we or any other country wouldn't pride ourselves AS MUCH on it !
I guess when the Chairman of the Fed has never held an honest job for any real length of time, unless you count his stint waiting tables in college and a little construction work, I ought to realize it's just as bad here...
The elite institute is to guarantee they all think and speak alike as per the reigning snobbish left-wing pseudo-intellectual class. A real intellectual class would want them to think for themselves and be open to other opinions, including those from the working classes.
A NY hotel? --- Giant bed bugs killed him for his riches,, they occupy 98% of the hotels
Yeah and then they march down the street chanting, " We are the 98%!"
rofl @ Gary
He was actually found in a NYC hotel, not a NY hotel. NY has plenty of hotels from Buffalo to Plattsburgh and downstate to NYC. The liberal media doens't know the difference. It goes the same for Washington D.C. The president lives in Washington D.C (or just D.C) but he does not live in Washington so they shouldn't call it Washington. Seattle is in Washington.
Don't confuse me, I'm still trying to figure out why the South is so far North ---- It should be in the Southern Hemisphere to restore the natural balance of things
You want to know what's funny? Its grow men believing in a thing called the Liberal Media. Where is it? This liberal media? News outlets owned by whom? GE, Disney, Viacom etc etc. Seriously? Where is the Non-Liberal Media, whatever that might be? In my experience with the vast majority of American morons they would hold the shining example of FAUX News, founded by an Australian Oligarch with Monarchist affectations, given to phone tapping, gay-outing, beating the drum against China but turning his pussy ass tail when they threaten to pull the plug on him etc etc.
Don't mess with that moron's delusions of being part of a 'team', it makes him happy.
Benjamin: Are you kidding me? Fox News (okay, I'll humor you, Faux News) is the only "Conservative" news channel out there. You have NBC, CBS, ABC, MSNBC, CNN, Headline News, PBS (in radio NPR), etc ad nauseum to get your left leaning news from...1 News channel against at least 7 that lean your way. Why so bitter? And can you explain the special editing of the Trayvon Martin 911 call from Zimmerman to specifically portray him as a racist?? Not saying Zimmerman isn't guilty of anything but it wasn't race baiting...
@Meryl
Can YOU explain the so-called "special editing" of Zimmerman's 911 call to "specifically portray him as a racist?" Don't just throw some words out here. Provide examples - whereto's and wherefores.
@ Tortcats- I can provide examples...The today show took zimmerman's call to the police where he is talking about some guy who looks suspicious...then the today show EDITED OUT the part where the dispatcher asked if the guy was black, white or what have you...and LEFT IN the part where zimmerman says "He looks black' So instead of coming off as a guy looking at a dude walking through his neighborhood following a person who he deemed suspicious simply by the fact that it was late...the Today show deliberately edited out that portion and had george say "He looks suspicious, he looks black'...making George Zimmerman a racist and rollling this ball way down a hill it had no business rolling down. Stop being so blind. There is an agenda here, and anyone who says there isn't is part of it.
I know what you mean Jim, I can't figure out why people think West Virginia is a southern state.
This has the Mossad written all over it.
What the article does not say is that Descoings had opened up the elitest PO institute to non-elite segments of French Society (think the country's burgeoning Muslim population).
If he was glowing bright from radiation it could be the Russians.....
Benny,
Better switch brands of aluminum foil, your hat is too tight.....Mossad, gee whiz dude.
Ol' Benny is FURIOUS the world doesn't acknowledge him for the burgeoning "evil genius" that he is - so he just trolls here with his anti-Semite, anti - conservative spiel.
"Better switch brands of aluminum foil, your hat is too tight.....Mossad, gee whiz dude."
Quite right, I.S. Mossad isn't that sloppy.
Is Strauss-Kahn's courtesan still in the hotel business?
That's what he gets for being a prominent French academic.
Isn't that like being a "jumbo shrimp".
They found french fry wrappers in the room, it was suicide by cholesterol overdose
The wrappers were from the Burger KIng. Something very suspicious.
You know, in France they call a Quarter Pounder with cheese a Royale with Cheese. I think they said that on "Pulp Fiction."
A quarter pounder with cheese? That's Calista Flockhart with a yeast infection.
except AP the referenced city in Pulp Fiction is in the Netherlands (Amsterdam). So no, "Check out the big brain on AP" for you today.
What!? What dont sound like no country I ever heard of. They speak English in What?
Say What one more time! I dare you! I double dog dare you! Notice Pitt did not skip to the triple dog dare on Brad like Schwartz did to Flick.
I gotta get a life
Sounds like the place should be renamed "sciences ho" because it seems to train men who are affiliated with it to be oversexed male whores.
are you saying that doesn't apply to all men?
He should have went to the symposium there would have been a bunch of brainy alternative life style guys for him to choose from there.
wouldn't they have surveillance in the hotel hallways and know who was there?
Sorry, read it twice did not see it. How old was he?
It doesn't give his age.
Wikipedia says he was 53.
Thanks, seems a lot of 50 yr. old men do crazy stuff. Not me of course.
Commies and Muslims and France...whod a thunk it and who cares,soon Europe will not exist but the big bad Muslims,like roaches, will.What a shame...an 800yr.step backwards into the dark.
See what happens when to come to NYC for a piece of the action.
Suc le blow
The wages of sin is DEATH. Example A.
Can I get a loan?
The price of avarice.
New York appears not a safe place to visit and hope that there is not related to an organized crime.
Did he die in a case of smiling stiff?
After 4 hour he should have called the doctor
Newsflash for phonemane, NYC is in NY. I should know, I was born and raised here. It is perfectly fine for them to write that he was found in a NY hotel. If you read the entire article, you would see that the second paragraph mentions that his body was found in th Michelangelo Hotel in midtown Manhattan. Please save your outrage for a worthy cause.
No doubt he tried to rape a cleaning-lady or someone like that; and she decided she wasn't about to become yet another victim for these pompous Frogs who think they're the greatest men on the planet and that all women everywhere want them, which is bull****!
...I only wish Dominic Strauss-Khan would've been murdered by his rape-victim, too!
France really does need to be bombed off the planet. Its stinky citizens who don't believe in bathing are nothing but a giant stain upon the Earth. They think just because they create a few wines and cheeses, and hang up their stupid paintings in the Louvre (because no other museum around the world accepted them in theirs), that makes them the greatest country on Earth...?! Wrong!
Ah, another expert's opinion of France by... Someone who likely has never been there.
This is uncanny. What s going on ? I am sorry for the man's family. RIP.
Strauss-Kahn is involved in another sex scandal involving prostitutes in Paris. Again, he "did not know" that the women involved were of the horizontal profession.
Strauss-Kahn and the rest of his kind should be f***ing Guillotined!
Frogs like him don't use their heads for anything constructive towards society, anyway! So why should they be allowed to keep them?!