IMF chief denies sexual assault charges

IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn denied yesterday sexually assaulting a New York hotel chambermaid, but the judge turned down his $1 million bail offer and ordered him to remain behind bars.

The stunning fall from grace of one of the most powerful men in the world played out in a packed Manhattan courtroom where 62-year-old Mr Strauss-Kahn shared a worn, wooden defendants’ bench with hoodlums and drug-users.

The grim charges against the flamboyant and outspoken head of the International Monetary Fund were published in court documents prescribing up to 25 years in prison for each of the two gravest allegations.

Appearing haggard and shrunken under his black raincoat, Mr Strauss-Kahn sat ashen-faced, doing everything he could to avoid the gaze of a courtroom crammed with police officers and reporters from the international media.

Then pandemonium: a group of photographers and cameramen were suddenly admitted and jostled with each other, directly opposite the jet-setting politician, their long lenses aimed at him like the rifles of a firing squad.

In the cross-hairs of a sex scandal that has torpedoed his French presidential hopes and likely ended his stellar political career, there was nowhere left for Mr Strauss-Kahn to hide.

“He denies these charges. He is presumed innocent under the law,” his lawyer Benjamin Brafman told Judge Melissa Jackson.

But the judge turned down Mr Strauss-Kahn’s offer to submit all his travel documents, post $1 million bail and agree to reside with his daughter in New York, ordering him to remain in jail until the next hearing on Friday.

“We are obviously disappointed by the court decision,” Mr Brafman told reporters afterwards, but insisted: “This battle has just begun.”

The alleged victim, employed for the past three years at the luxury Sofitel hotel near Times Square, picked Mr Strauss-Kahn out of a line-up on Sunday, as police said they had won a warrant to seek DNA evidence on his clothes. The woman at the centre of the claims in New York, who reports said came to the US from Guinea, alleged Mr Strauss-Kahn had assaulted her in his suite when he got out of his shower naked.

“She was in the room. She thought it was empty. That’s when he approached her from behind and touched her inappropriately. He forced her to perform a sexual act on him,” a police spokesman said.

The maid, described by police as “female, black, 32 years old,” alleges that at around midday on Saturday, Mr Strauss-Kahn shut her in his plush $500-a-night suite.

An “anal sexual conduct” allegation mentioned in the charge-sheet was not referred to in detail.

The seven counts against Mr Strauss-Kahn carry a maximum total sentence of 74 years and three months in jail if served consecutively. The judge could allow concurrent terms, meaning he would only face up to 25 years.

Prosecutors won the bail argument, suggesting Mr Strauss-Kahn would likely try to escape prosecution by fleeing to France, which has no extradition agreement with the US.