Strauss-Kahn's House Arrest Features Whirlpool Bath, A-List Neighbors

Dominique Strauss-Kahn has reportedly found a place to serve his house arrest while he awaits trial — and it’s a far cry from Rikers Island.

The New York Post has an exhaustive description of the $50,000-per-month Tribeca townhouse (pictured), which is located at 153 Franklin St., in case you want to find on Google street view. Some of its amenities:

Four bedrooms, five baths.
“a state-of-the-art Boffi kitchen with high-end Miele and Gaggenau appliances”
“a ‘great room’ with a skylight and fireplace, perfect for pre-trial strategy sessions with his lawyers”
“an Italian limestone bath with a Duravit jet tub and waterfall shower — for relaxing after a hard day dueling with the prosecutors who want to lock him up in Manhattan Supreme Court”
famous neighbors: “If he weren’t under 24-hour home confinement, the jet-setting horndog could hang with TriBeCa neighbors Jay-Z, Harvey Keitel, Ed Burns and wife Christy Turlington.”

The Post is pretty clearly trying to stoke outrage about DSK’s opulent digs — they write, “The man derided by critics as a member of ‘the Caviar Left’ for his expensive tastes despite his Socialist politics should feel right at home surrounded by the best furnishings and electronics money can buy.” And the idea put forth in the French press and elsewhere that the former IMF head couldn’t possibly be housed in prison like a common criminal was certainly obnoxious. But no matter what Ben Stein says, the real issue isn’t whether DSK is enjoying whirlpool baths and “hand-crafted Italian cabinetry.” It’s whether he sexually assaulted a woman. That possibility is enough to make his new neighbors anxious — one tells the Post, “This is going to be awful. We don’t need this. They should send him back to jail.” But clearly Strauss-Kahn’s handlers were faced with something of a dilemma when it came to accommodations — it’s not like they could put him in a hotel.