IMF boss Strauss-Kahn awaits sex-charge hearing
The head of the International Monetary Fund was today waiting to be brought before a US court accused of sexually assaulting a hotel maid.
The charges agains Dominique Strauss-Kahn stunned the global financial world and upended French presidential politics.
Strauss-Kahn, a married father of four whose reputation with women earned him the nickname “the great seducer”, will face charges of attempted rape and criminal sexual contact in the alleged attack on a maid who went into his $3,000 (€2,100) a night penthouse suite at the hotel near New York’s Times Square to clean it.
Strauss-Kahn was taken into custody on Saturday, then spent more 24 hours in police custody, where the maid identified him from a lineup.
He then went to hospital for a “forensic examination” requested by prosecutors to obtain more evidence in the case, defence lawyer William Taylor said.
Another defence lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, said the IMF managing director “intends to vigorously defend these charges and he denies any wrongdoing”.
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.
Strauss-Kahn, 62, was detained 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 John F. Kennedy International Airport.
He was alone when he checked into the luxury Sofitel hotel, not far from Times Square, on Friday afternoon. It was not clear why he was in New York. The IMF is based in Washington, and he had been due in Germany on Sunday to meet Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The 32-year-old maid told police that when she entered his suite early on Saturday afternoon, she thought it was unoccupied. Instead, Strauss-Kahn emerged from the bathroom naked, chased her down a hallway and pulled her into a bedroom, where he sexually assaulted her, a New York Police Department spokesman said.
The woman told police she fought him off, but then he dragged her into the bathroom, where he forced her to perform oral sex on him and tried to remove her underwear. The woman was able to break free again, escaped the room and told hotel staff what had happened.
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,” the spokesman said.
Police 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.
A spokeswoman for Sofitel, said the hotel’s staff 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, defended him. “I do not believe for one second the accusations brought against my husband. I have no doubt his innocence will be established,” said the a New York-born journalist who hosted a popular weekly TV news broadcast in France in the 1980s and ’90s.
The arrest could throw the long-divided French Socialists back into disarray about whom they could present as president Nicolas Sarkozy’s opponent. Even some of his adversaries were stunned.
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 elsewhere.
In 2008, Strauss-Kahn was briefly investigated over whether he had an improper relationship with a subordinate female employee. The IMF board found his actions “reflected a serious error of judgment” yet deemed the relationship consensual.
But attempted rape charges are far more serious than extramarital flings and could do far more damage to his reputation in France and abroad.
French media have recently reported about Strauss-Kahn’s lifestyle, including luxury cars and suits, that some have dubbed a smear campaign. Some French raised suspicions about the sexual assault case as well.
A former economics professor, Strauss-Kahn served as French industry minister and finance minister in the 1990s, and is credited with preparing France for the adoption of the euro by taming its deficit.
He took over as head of the IMF in November 2007. The 187-nation lending agency provides help in the form of emergency loans for countries facing severe financial problems.
Strauss-Kahn was supposed to be meeting Ms Merkel in Berlin on Sunday about increasing aid to Greece, and then join EU finance ministers in Brussels on Monday and Tuesday.
The IMF is responsible for one-third of Greece’s existing loan package, and his expected presence at these meetings underlined the gravity of the Greek crisis.
