IMF chief in sex case court delay
The New York court appearance for the International Money Fund chief accused of sexually assaulting a hotel maid has been delayed, his lawyer said today.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn agreed to an examination requested by prosecutors to obtain evidence in the case and the arraignment planned for Sunday, US time, will now happen today.
Police arrested father-of-four Strauss-Kahn, 62, on Saturday night, Irish time, on charges including attempted rape, after a 32-year-old maid at the Sofitel hotel in New York said he sexually assaulted her when she entered his suite.
Lawyers said earlier that the IMF chief, who is also a leading contender for the French presidency, would plead not guilty to the charges.
A sombre-looking Strauss-Kahn was later escorted out of the Harlem police precinct, his arms behind his back.
Police said the maid picked Strauss-Kahn out of an identity parade.
Strauss-Kahn’s lawyer William Taylor said testing for evidence delayed the court appearance.
“Our client willingly consented to a scientific and forensic examination,” Mr Taylor said. Strauss-Kahn was “tired, but he’s fine”.
The IMF, which plays a key role in efforts to control the European debt crisis, has named an acting leader and said it remained “fully functioning and operational” despite Saturday’s arrest of its managing director.
A second lawyer for Strauss-Kahn, Benjamin Brafman, said last night: “He intends to vigorously defend these charges and he denies any wrongdoing.”
Mr Brafman is one of the city’s most high-profile defence lawyers. His clients have included mobsters and such celebrities as Sean “P Diddy” Combs and ex-New York Giants star Plaxico Burress.
Strauss-Kahn was arrested less than four hours after the alleged assault, plucked from first class on a Paris-bound Air France flight that was just about to leave the gate at John F Kennedy International Airport.
The white-haired, well-dressed, three-times-married man was alone when he checked into the $3,000-a-night Sofitel hotel, not far from Manhattan’s Times Square, on Friday afternoon, police said. It was not clear why he was in New York.
The IMF is based in Washington, and he had been due in Germany yesterday to meet chancellor Angela Merkel.
The maid told authorities that when she entered his spacious, suite early on Saturday afternoon, she thought it was unoccupied. But Strauss-Kahn emerged from the bathroom naked, chased her down a hallway and pulled her into a bedroom, where he sexually assaulted her, New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne said.
The woman told police she fought him off, but he then dragged her into the bathroom, where he forced her to perform a sex act on him and tried to remove her underwear. The woman broke free again, escaped from the room and told hotel staff what had happened, authorities said.
Strauss-Kahn was gone by the time detectives arrived moments later. He left his mobile phone behind. “It looked like he got out of there in a hurry,” Mr Browne said.
The NYPD discovered he was at JFK and contacted officials at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs the airport. Port Authority police officers arrested him.
The maid was taken by police to a hospital and was treated for minor injuries. Stacy Royal, a spokeswoman for Sofitel, said the hotel was co-operating in the investigation and that the maid “has been a satisfactory employee of the hotel for the past three years”.
Strauss-Kahn was arrested on charges of a criminal sex act, attempted rape and unlawful imprisonment. Authorities were looking for any forensic evidence and DNA.
His wife, Anne Sinclair, a New York-born journalist who hosted a popular weekly TV news broadcast in France in the 1980s, defended him in a statement to French news agency AFP.
“I do not believe for one second the accusations brought against my husband. I have no doubt his innocence will be established,” she said
A member of France’s Socialist Party, Strauss-Kahn was widely considered the strongest potential challenger next year to President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose political fortunes have been flagging.
“At the top of the polls,” Strauss-Kahn tweeted proudly in French last December, linking an article that showed him ahead in opinion polls when French voters were asked whom they would choose in a primary.
He also noted that he trailed only Warren Buffett and Bill Gates on a list of 100 “global thinkers” compiled last November by Foreign Policy magazine.
Strauss-Kahn was cited for his “steely vision at a moment of crisis” – for convincing Germany to help bail out Greece’s debt-laden government and for helping to put the brakes on defaults in Hungary, Pakistan and Ukraine.
Strauss-Kahn is known as DSK in France, but media there also have dubbed him “the great seducer”. His reputation as a charmer of women has not hurt his career in France, where politicians’ private lives traditionally come under less scrutiny than in the US.
In 2008 he was briefly investigated over whether he had an improper relationship with a subordinate woman employee. The IMF board found that the relationship was consensual, but called his actions “regrettable” and said they “reflected a serious error of judgment”.
Strauss-Kahn issued an apology, writing in an email to IMF staff that he showed poor judgment but did not abuse his position.
The sexual assault allegations come amid French media reports about Strauss-Kahn’s lifestyle, including luxury cars and suits, that some have dubbed a smear campaign.
IMF spokeswoman Caroline Atkinson said the agency would have no comment on the New York case, saying only that the IMF “remains fully functioning and operational”.
John Lipsky, the IMF’s first deputy managing director, will lead the organisation in an acting capacity in Strauss-Kahn’s absence.
