In jail on sex charge, IMF head awaits his fate (AP)

NEW YORK – IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn awoke Tuesday in a notorious jail on an attempted rape charge as the outside world swirled with questions about the truth of the accusations and pressure mounted on him to step down.

The 62-year-old managing director of the International Monetary Fund spent an uneventful night at the Rikers Island complex after being denied bail Monday, corrections officials said.

In asking that he be kept behind bars on charges he tried to rape a hotel maid, prosecutors had warned that the wealthy banker might flee to France and put himself beyond the reach of U.S. law, like the filmmaker Roman Polanski.

Defense lawyers have insisted there was no force involved and predicted Strauss-Kahn would be vindicated. Still, his arrest and detention have sent shock waves through the financial world, as well as French politics and culture.

Austria's finance minister suggested Tuesday that Strauss-Kahn consider stepping down to avoid damaging the IMF, which provides emergency loans to countries in severe distress and tries to maintain global financial stability.

"Considering the situation, that bail was denied, he has to figure out for himself that he is hurting the institution," Maria Fekter said as she arrived at a meeting of European finance ministers in Brussels.

Elena Salgado, Fekter's Spanish counterpart, said Strauss-Kahn has to decide for himself whether he wants to step down, considering the "extraordinarily serious" charges.

"If I had to show my solidarity and support for someone, it would be toward the woman who has been assaulted, if that is really the case that she has been," she said.

Strauss-Kahn, a member of France's Socialist party, was widely considered the strongest potential challenger next year to President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Defenders of Strauss-Kahn, a former finance minister, said they suspected a smear campaign or a set-up. Others expressed sympathy.

"I didn't like the pictures I've seen on television," Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker said Monday night, referring to footage of Strauss-Kahn in handcuffs being escorted by police outside a New York precinct house.

Showing a suspect in handcuffs is illegal in France since a 2000 law aimed at the preserving the presumption of innocence.

"K.O." screamed banner headlines in France's Le Parisien and Liberation papers, with full-page photos of an unshaven Strauss-Kahn in the New York courtroom where he was ordered held without bail Monday.

Strauss-Kahn's situation could translate to political leverage for Sarkozy, who is likely to get a populist boost from reports in a German newspaper, quoting the president's father, that Sarkozy's wife is pregnant.

Financial and world leaders are already speculating on who would succeed Strauss-Kahn at the IMF.

A final choice would largely hinge on whether the U.S. and the European Union continue to split the jobs of the two Washington-based sister organizations — the IMF and the World Bank. Since World War II, a European has headed the Fund, while the U.S. has grabbed the top job at the World Bank.

Strauss-Kahn was arrested Saturday at Kennedy Airport after the allegations at the Sofitel hotel near Times Square.

"This battle has just begun," defense attorney Benjamin Brafman told reporters Monday.

Brafman said defense lawyers believe the forensic evidence "will not be consistent with a forcible encounter." Defense lawyers wouldn't elaborate, but Brafman said "there are significant issues that were already found" that make it "quite likely that he will be ultimately be exonerated."

Strauss-Kahn was ordered jailed at least until a court proceeding Friday. He cannot claim diplomatic immunity because he was in New York on personal business and was paying his own way, the IMF said. He could seek that protection only if he were conducting official business, spokesman William Murray said.

Because of his high profile, Strauss-Kahn is being held in protective custody on Rikers Island, away from most detainees, said city Correction Department spokesman Stephen Morello. Unlike most prisoners who share 50-bed barracks, he has a single-bed cell and eats all meals alone there. He has a prison guard escort when he is outside his cell.

Rikers, on an island in the East River between the Bronx and Queens, is one of the nation's largest jail complexes, with a daily inmate population of about 14,000.

Its history includes run-ins between inmates and guards. In one case last year, a guard was sentenced to six years in prison for ordering inmate beatings as part of a rogue disciplinary system. Prosecutors said he imposed order by having teenage inmates beat other teenagers who had stepped out of line.

Also last year, more than a dozen guards were injured while quelling fights between inmates awaiting pretrial hearings. And in February, the city settled a wrongful-death lawsuit brought by the family of an inmate who died after a scuffle with guards.

The French newspaper Le Monde, citing people close to Strauss-Kahn, said he had reserved the luxury hotel suite for one night for a quick trip to have lunch with his daughter, who is studying in New York.

Strauss-Kahn is accused of attacking a maid who had gone in to clean the penthouse suite Saturday afternoon. He is charged with attempted rape, sex abuse, a criminal sex act, unlawful imprisonment and forcible touching. The most serious charge carries five to 25 years in prison.

The 32-year-old maid told authorities that she thought the suite was empty but that Strauss-Kahn emerged from the bathroom naked, chased her down a hallway, pulled her into a bedroom and dragged her into a bathroom, police said.

He grabbed her breasts, tried to pull down her pantyhose, grabbed at her crotch and forced her to perform oral sex, according to a court complaint. She broke free, escaped the room and told hotel staffers what had happened, authorities said. She was treated at a hospital for minor injuries.

"The victim provided a very powerful and detailed account of the violent sexual assault," Assistant District Attorney John "Artie" McConnell said. He added that forensic evidence may support her account. Strauss-Kahn submitted to a forensic examination Sunday night.

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Associated Press writers Jamey Keaten and Elaine Ganley in Paris, Christopher S. Rugaber in Washington, and Tom Hays in New York contributed to this report.

Strauss-Kahn awaits grand jury from prison island (AFP)

NEW YORK (AFP) – IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn woke Tuesday in New York's notoriously tough Rikers Island jail while prosecutors sought grand jury approval for bringing him to trial on sex assault charges.

The French politician and head of the International Monetary Fund was transferred to Rikers after a judge refused him bail in his first court appearance Monday, saying he might try to escape to France.

The crucial next steps in legal proceedings deciding the powerful figure's fate were happening behind closed doors in Manhattan, a short distance, but a world away from the grim prison island in the East River.

A grand jury is to convene to decide whether there is enough evidence in the accusations that Strauss-Kahn tried to rape a chambermaid at the Sofitel hotel in Times Square. Grand jury proceedings are secret and a spokeswoman for the Manhattan District Attorney's office would not comment on progress.

Already, though, the bottom has fallen out of Strauss-Kahn's world.

Until Saturday, when the alleged assault took place in his luxury Sofitel suite, the silver-haired Frenchman was a global VIP, enjoying a glamorous lifestyle and dealing with the world's most powerful leaders. He was also widely seen as the man who could unseat President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2012 elections.

Now he is accused of a sickening attempt to force himself on an immigrant maid who allegedly entered his 28th floor room to clean, then found herself chased and assaulted by a naked man. He faces a long prison sentence if convicted.

In France, Strauss-Kahn continues to enjoy some backing from supporters circulating conspiracy theories that he may have been set up. Many others have chosen to remain silent on the hugely embarrassing affair.

However on Tuesday, Prime Minister Francois Fillon was quoted saying there could be "no excuse" if the allegations were true. It would be "a very serious act," he said.

Fillon was the most senior French politician to be quoted explicitly outlining a position on the alleged crime.

Elsewhere in Europe, senior figures also began to distance themselves from the fallen star.

As lobbying grew on possible replacements for Strauss-Kahn at the head of the IMF, Austrian Finance Minister Maria Fekter openly called on him to resign.

"Given the refusal to grant him bail, he must think about the damage he's causing to the institution" by not resigning, she said.

Spain's Finance Minister Elena Salgado said the alleged crimes "are extraordinarily serious."

Strauss-Kahn has denied all accusations and his lawyers promise a "vigorous" defense.

In remarks at Monday's bail hearing the chief line of defense centered on assertions that Strauss-Kahn did not try to flee the country, as alleged, and that immediately after the time of the alleged crime he went to have lunch.

This, lawyers say, indicates that he had nothing to hide and was not in a panic, as police and prosecutors have suggested.

Another possible defense, the New York Post tabloid reports, is that he may have had a consensual sexual encounter with the alleged victim. The Post quoted a "source close to the defense" saying "there may well have been consent."

In court, lawyer Ben Brafman said that the evidence "will not be consistent with a forcible encounter," but he did not elaborate and did not suggest consent. Prosecutors, however, say they have physical evidence, including a doctor's exam made immediately after the incident, indicating attempted rape.

On Tuesday, William Taylor, another defense attorney, would not confirm the Post story. "I don't have any comment. I don't even know who that is," he said, referring to the "source."

The alleged victim, said by police to be a black woman aged 32, lives in a working class neighborhood of the Bronx. She has not yet spoken in public.

Britain's Daily Mail newspaper on Tuesday quoted her brother as saying she was "a hard-working woman who is just a victim. She is a wonderful west African immigrant who just wants to work hard."

The brother told the Mail that on the day of the alleged assault, "She rang me and she said: 'Somebody has done something really bad to me. I've been attacked.'"

"She was crying all the time," the brother was quoted as saying.

Meanwhile, Strauss-Kahn faces other sex allegations in France where journalist Tristane Banon was preparing to file a complaint regarding an alleged 2002 attack in which she says Strauss-Kahn acted like a "rutting chimpanzee."

Apparently this was the incident referred to by prosecutor John McConnell in court on Monday when he said he was looking into "reports he has in fact engaged in conduct similar to the conduct alleged in this complaint on at least one other occasion."

McConnell said this incident was "abroad."