Socialist Head of IMF Accused of Sexual Attack in NYC

He was making a hasty retreat back to France when he was collared.

The head of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, was taken in custody on Saturday, minutes before he was to fly to Paris from John F. Kennedy International Airport, the authorities said.

He was accused of a sex attack on a maid earlier in the day at a Times Square hotel, the authorities said.

Mr. Strauss-Kahn, a candidate for president of France, was taken off an Air France flight by officers from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and turned over to Manhattan detectives, according to a Port Authority spokesman. He was expected to be taken to the offices of the Manhattan Special Victims Unit at P.S.A. 5 in Manhattan, another official said.

It was about 4:45 p.m. when plainclothes detectives of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey suddenly boarded the plane, Air France Flight 23, as it idled on the tarmac at the airport 10 minutes before it was scheduled to take off and took Mr. Strauss-Kahn into custody, according to an agency official.

The Port Authority officers were acting on information from the New York Police Department, whose detectives had been investigating a brutal attack of a woman employee at the hotel Sofitel New York, at 45 West 44th Street, in the heart of the city’s theater district.

Mr. Strauss-Kahn had been considered a leading contender to run on the Socialist Party’s ticket against President Nicolas Sarkozy. A former economics professor, Mr. Strauss-Kahn rose to political prominence first as a deputy in parliament in the 1980’s and then as a finance minister under socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, a post he held until 1999. Mr. Strauss-Kahn eventually sought the socialist party’s presidential nomination himself in 2007 — calling for an “anti-Sarkozy front” — but lost to Segolene Royal. Months later he was tapped to run the I.M.F. and received Sarkozy’s support, which many critics called a strategy by Sarkozy to keep Mr. Strauss-Kahn away from the forefront of the socialist party.

But Mr. Strauss-Kahn, who is married to a prominent television news reporter, has been dogged by scandal. In 2008 he was embroiled in a controversy after accusations arose that he had had a sexual relationship with one of his subordinates, Piroska Nagy, a senior official in the I.M.F.’s Africa Department.

Here he is with another noted sexual predator (Strauss Kahn center right).

The sniveling has begun.

Hours before Strauss-Kahn was pulled from the flight, a close Socialist Party ally claimed he was the target of a smear campaign by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

"There is now a totally structured and orchestrated campaign, which has already been announced by Mr. Sarkozy and his closest allies, to attack the character of Strauss-Kahn," Socialist politician Jean-Marie Le Guen told Europe 1 radio.

Update: As surmised, he was in a tremendous hurry.

The 32-year-old woman told authorities that she entered Strauss-Kahn’s room at the Sofitel hotel near Manhattan’s Times Square at about 1pm and he emerged from the bedroom naked, threw her down and tried to sexually assault her, New York police spokesman Paul Browne said.

She somehow broke free and escaped the room.

She told hotel staff what had happened, authorities said. They called police.

When detectives arrived moments later, Strauss-Kahn had already left the hotel, leaving behind his mobile phone and other personal items.

‘It looked like he got out of there in a hurry,’ said Mr Browne.

Some background.

Already updated at Wikipedia!

Flashback to May 2010.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the International Monetary Fund is an incorrigible seducer whose weakness for women could fatally scupper his presidential ambitions, a new book has claimed.

The leader French Socialist and former finance minister is considered perhaps the only politician in a position to beat President Nicolas Sarkozy should he run against him in elections in 2012. But according to the book - said to be written by a close female aide - his penchant for the opposite sex could knock him out of the race even before it starts.

The book claims the 61-year-old Mr Strauss-Kahn – married to Anne Sinclair, a famous French TV presenter - has had a string of extra-marital affairs and that photographs exist of him coming out of a wife-swapping club.

And to boot, he's an economist! Always keep a close eye on those guys.