IMF Head Arrested For Sexual Assault of Maid

The New York Times reports:

The managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, was taken off an Air France plane at Kennedy International Airport minutes before it was to take off for Paris on Saturday and arrested in connection with the sexual attack of a maid at a Midtown Manhattan hotel, the authorities said.

Mr. Strauss-Kahn, 62, who was widely expected to become the Socialist candidate for the French presidency, was apprehended by detectives of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in the first class section of the jetliner, and immediately turned over to detectives from the Midtown South Precinct, officials said.

The New York Police Department took Mr. Strauss-Kahn into custody, where he was “being questioned in connection with the sexual assault of a hotel chambermaid earlier this afternoon,” Deputy Commissioner Paul J. Browne, the department’s chief spokesman, said Saturday evening. “He is being arrested for a criminal sex act, attempted rape and unlawful imprisonment.”

A spokeswoman for the Manhattan district attorney’s office said prosecutors were investigating the matter and expected to bring formal criminal charges against Mr. Strauss-Kahn by early Sunday morning.

Reached by telephone, Benjamin Brafman, a lawyer, said he would be representing Mr. Strauss-Kahn with William Taylor, a lawyer in Washington.

“We have not yet been able to meet with our client and we may have more to say tomorrow,” said Mr. Brafman, who said he had been contacted late Saturday night. “He is being housed at special victims tonight.”

Mr. Strauss-Kahn, a former French finance minister, had been expected to declare his candidacy soon, after three and a half years as the leader of the fund, which is based in Washington. He was considered by many to have done a good job in a period of intense global economic strain, when the bank itself had become vital to the smooth running of the world and the European economy.

His apprehension came at about 4:40 p.m., when two detectives of the Port Authority suddenly boarded Air France Flight 23, as the plane idled at the departure gate, said John P. L. Kelly, a spokesman for the agency.

“It was 10 minutes before its scheduled departure,” said Mr. Kelly. “They were just about to close the doors.”

Mr. Kelly said Mr. Strauss-Kahn was traveling alone and was not handcuffed during the apprehension.

“He complied with the detectives’ directions,” Mr. Kelly said.

The Port Authority officers were acting on information from the Police Department, whose detectives had been investigating the assault of a female employee of Sofitel New York, at 45 West 44th Street, near Times Square. Working quickly, the city detectives learned he had boarded a flight at Kennedy airport to leave the country.