B*******a
发帖数: 452 | 1 IMF chief expected to be charged with sex attack
By Christine Kearney and Lesley Wroughton Christine Kearney And Lesley
Wroughton – 43 mins ago
NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – IMF chief and possible French presidential
contender Dominique Strauss-Kahn was taken into police custody and is
expected to be charged on Sunday with an alleged sexual assault of a hotel
maid in New York City, police said.
Strauss-Kahn, a key player in the world's response to the 2007-09 financial
meltdown and in Europe's ongoing debt crisis, was removed from an Air France
plane 10 minutes before it was to take off for Paris from John F Kennedy
International Airport, New York police spokesman Paul Browne said.
Browne said police expected Strauss-Kahn would be formally arrested and
charged: "He will be charged with a criminal sexual act, attempted rape and
unlawful imprisonment."
A lawyer representing Strauss-Kahn, Benjamin Brafman, told Reuters in an
email that the IMF chief "will plead not guilty." Brafman made no further
comment.
A 32-year-old maid filed a sexual assault complaint after fleeing the $3,000
-a-night hotel suite at the Sofitel in Times Square where the alleged
incident occurred, Browne said.
Strauss-Kahn, 62, who has been considered a possible Socialist Party
candidate in the French presidential election in April and May 2012, left
the hotel after the incident, the police spokesman said.
Browne gave reporters an account of events which led to the state charges
against Strauss-Kahn. "She told detectives he came out of the bathroom naked
, ran down a hallway to the foyer where she was, pulled her into a bedroom
and began to sexually assault her, according to her account."
"She pulled away from him and he dragged her down a hallway into the
bathroom where he engaged in a criminal sexual act, according to her account
to detectives. He tried to lock her into the hotel room," Browne added.
Browne said Strauss-Kahn does not have diplomatic immunity. He is expected
to be brought before state court on Sunday.
According to New York state law, a criminal sexual act includes forcibly
compelling someone to engage in oral sex.
IMPACT ON IMF
The allegation will be a major worldwide embarrassment to the IMF, which has
authorized billions of dollars in lending programs to troubled countries
and has played a major role in the euro zone debt crisis.
It follows the announcement on Thursday the IMF's No. 2 official, John
Lipsky, plans to step down in August when his term ends.
The IMF managing director has yet to say whether he will run for president,
although French opinion polls put him as a clear winner over conservative
incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy if the two faced off in an election.
"The NYPD realized he had fled, he had left his cell phone behind," Browne
said. "We learned he was on an Air France plane. They held the plane and he
was taken off and is now being held in police custody for questioning."
He was taken to the police department's Special Victims office in Manhattan.
The woman, who has not been named, "was brought by EMS (emergency medical
services) to the Roosevelt Hospital, where she was treated for minor
injuries," Browne said.
Strauss-Kahn was on his way to Europe for a meeting on Sunday with German
Chancellor Angela Merkel to discuss the European debt crisis and then was to
attend a euro zone finance ministers meeting in Brussels on Monday.
Strauss-Kahn took over the International Monetary Fund in November 2007 for
a five-year term scheduled to end next year.
Before that, he was a French finance minister, member of the French National
Assembly and a professor of economics at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques
de Paris.
The IMF declined to comment and IMF board officials told Reuters they had
not been informed officially of the incident.
PAST CONTROVERSY
Strauss-Kahn has faced controversy before. In October 2008, he apologized
for "an error of judgment" for an affair with a female IMF economist who was
his subordinate. An inquiry cleared him of harassment and abuse of power,
although he was warned by the fund's board of member countries against
further improper conduct.
Strauss-Kahn apologized to the woman, Piroska Nagy, and his wife, French
television personality Anne Sinclair, as well as to IMF employees for the
trouble he had caused.
Since taking over the IMF, he has won plaudits for putting the fund, the
world's main overseer of the global economic system, at the center of global
efforts to cope with the financial meltdown of 2007-09.
Strauss-Kahn introduced sweeping changes at the global institution to ensure
that countries swamped by the financial collapse had access to emergency
loans. He was pivotal in brokering a bailout program for Iceland, Hungary,
Greece, Ireland, and recently Portugal.
He has also overseen internal changes that have given emerging market
countries, such as China, India and Brazil, greater voting power in the
institution, and weighed into thornier issues by urging China to allow its
currency to rise in value in a dispute with the United States.
Based in Washington at the IMF's headquarters, Strauss-Kahn has continued to
spend a lot of time in France, fanning speculation he was considering re-
entering politics as a presidential candidate.
Lipsky's planned departure and now Strauss-Kahn's detention raises questions
about a possible leadership vacuum should the IMF chief be charged by U.S.
authorities or face possible discipline by the IMF board.
(Reporting by Christine Kearney and Noeleen Walder; Editing by Peter Cooney,
Todd Eastham and Jackie Frank) | l****o
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