Dominique Strauss-Kahn, IMF chief faces arraignment in New York on rape charges.
IMF leader and potential French presidential candidate Dominique Strauss-Kahn, 62, was pulled from an airplane bound for Paris just before its departure Saturday in New York, the Associated Press reported.
The IMF chief was arrested after a 32-year-old maid told authorities Strauss-Kahn attacked her Saturday afternoon after she entered his suite at the luxury Sofitel hotel to clean the $3,000-a-night suite, which she had been told was empty, the AP reported.
According to an account given by the woman to police, Strauss-Kahn came out of a bathroom naked, pursued her down a hallway, and pulled her into a bedroom, where he started to sexually assault her. The woman said she fought him off, then he pulled her into the bathroom, where he forced her to perform oral sex on him and attempted to remove her underwear. The woman once again broke free and alerted hotel staff, who called police, the authorities said.
Strauss-Kahn, considered a potential Socialist Party challenger to French President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2012, was arrested on an Air France jet about to depart from John F. Kennedy International Airport.
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