IMF chief submits to DNA exam ahead of New York court date on sex assault charges as police claim he tried to flee the country

• 'Great seducer' Dominique Strauss-Kahn to be arraigned in court today
• He could face up to 20 years in prison for alleged attack on hotel maid
• Delay came after DSK consented to 'an examination'
• Second woman accuses him of sex attack in Paris ten years ago
• Lawyer: He will plead not guilty
• His lawyer also defended Michael Jackson against child molestation charges
• GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul slams IMF over accusations
• Air France plane was idling on tarmac getting ready for take-off
• Police say he left mobile phone in room and appeared to have left in a hurry
• Unclear what he was doing in New York - due at meeting in Germany today
• Wife has 'no doubt' he's innocent

IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn could face up to 20 years in prison as he faces sex assault charges in a New York court this morning in an astonishing fall from grace that has stunned the international community and his native France.

The country's former finance minister was due to appear in court last night but his arraignment was delayed after he consented to an examination, his lawyer said.

Strauss-Khan, a father of four who has been married three times, is being held after a hotel maid at the luxury Sofitel hotel, not far from Times Square, accused him of dragging her into his $3,000-a-night suite and before attempting to sodomise her.

The 32-year-old African American maid, thought originally to be from Ghana, told authorities that when she entered Strauss-Kahn's suite to clean it on Saturday afternoon, he emerged naked from the bathroom and chased her down a hallway before pulling her back inside.

The maid claims she then briefly fought him off before he dragged her into the bathroom and forced her to perform oral sex on him.

The woman said she was able to break free again as he tried to remove her underwear and ran downstairs to tell hotel staff what had happened.

Strauss-Kahn had left by the time detectives arrived minutes later and appeared to have fled in a hurry, police said, leaving his cell phone behind.

The IMF boss, 62, who reportedly earns more than $500,000 a year, is said to have been caught after calling the hotel to ask if he had left his phone there.

A quick-thinking hotel security official lied that he had the phone and asked for Strauss-Kahn's location to meet him and return it, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Police then made the arrest at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport less than four hours after the alleged assault. Strauss-Kahn had boarded a flight for France and was dramatically seized from first class two minutes before the plane was due to take off.

He is now being held by police at a 'Special Victims Unit', where crimes of a sexual nature are investigated. He is reportedly being searched for scratches and traces of his accuser's DNA at the unit, where prisoners being served $1.80 meals and being.

The allegations have torn France's presidential race asunder and savaged the reputation of the suave and self-assured Strauss-Kahn, 62. He has topped opinion polls for months as the man most likely to become the nation's next president, consistently outshining the little-loved conservative incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy.

French author Tristane Banon, now 31, also spoke out today to claim Strauss Khan forcefully tried to seduce her ten years ago in Paris, allegedly leaving her having to fight him off physically. In France, for some, the arrest spells the end of his presidential ambitions and even his political career; others warned that it was too early to judge a man who denies wrongdoing; and still others suspected a plot to blacken his name just as France's presidential campaign heats up for the April 2012 first-round vote.

Strauss-Kahn has been accused of attacking a maid in the New York hotel where he was staying this weekend prior to a trip to Europe to meet Germany's Angela Merkel.

Strauss-Kahn previously nicknamed 'The Great Seducer' by the French media, was about to fly to Paris on Saturday when police boarded the Air France jet at New York's Kennedy Airport.

He was dragged from the first-class cabin to a holding cell at NYPD's Special Victims Unit in Harlem. Police have said it appeared that Strauss-Kahn was trying to flee the country.

Prosecutors confirmed Strauss-Kahn has been charged with a criminal sexual act, attempted rape and unlawful imprisonment in the alleged sexual assault of a hotel maid in New York City, police said.

'He denies all the charges against him,' his lawyer, Benjamin Brafman said.

Mr Brafman defended Michael Jackson from child molestation charges, and has also defended Sean 'P Diddy' Combs.

Last night Strauss-Kahn's lawyers told reporters waiting outside the Manhattan court where he was set to be appear that the arraignment had been delayed after the IMF chief had consented to an 'examination'.

Police say Strauss-Kahn does not have diplomatic immunity from the charges, which if proven could carry a prison sentence of 15 to 20 years. They have collected DNA evidence from the hotel suite.

French voters are famously tolerant of political leaders' extramarital affairs. The allegations against Strauss-Kahn are entirely different, and much more serious.

Many politicians have fallen after being caught in extramarital affairs and others have survived them, including former U.S. presidents John F Kennedy and Bill Clinton as well as former French President Francois Mitterrand.

Rarely have senior figures faced brutal assault charges like those filed against Strauss-Kahn.

The hotel maid at the luxury Sofitel who made the accusation picked Strauss-Kahn out of a line-up yesterday, police revealed.

A spokesman for the New York Police Department said that Strauss-Kahn and five men of a similar height, weight and appearance were asked to stand on parade whilst the woman stood on the other side of a one-way mirror.

The victim said: 'That's him' in a 'clear confident voice', the spokesman said.

Police made the revelations as Strauss-Kahn's wife said she 'does not believe for a second' the allegations made against her husband.

Anne Sinclair, 63, a French journalist, made it clear she would be sticking by the 62-year-old.

Calling for 'decency and restraint' in the scandal's coverage, she said: 'I don't believe for one second the accusations made against my husband. I have no doubt that his innocence will be established.'

At 4.45pm on Saturday plainclothes detectives from the New York Port Authority, which polices the airport, boarded Air France Flight 23 ten minutes before it was scheduled to leave and took Strauss-Kahn into custody.

When he was approached in the first-class cabin on the plane by authorities, he said: 'What is this about?' and was taken off the aircraft without handcuffs, law-enforcement sources said.

He left his mobile phone and other personal items in his hotel room, police said.

A police spokesman added that Strauss-Kahn appeared to have fled the hotel after the incident. 'It looked like he got out of there in a hurry,' he said.

The maid was taken by police to a local hospital.

She told police she was asked to clean the spacious $3,000-a-night suite, which she was told was empty.

She then alleges Strauss-Kahn emerged naked from a bathroom, chased her down a hallway, pulled her into a bedroom and began sexually assaulting her, at one point attempting to force her to perform oral sex.

An NYPD spokesman said that the woman alleged: 'The housekeeper went into the room and Mr Strauss-Kahn emerged from the bathroom naked.

'He grabbed the woman and pulled her into the bedroom and locked the door and then attempted to sexually assault her.

'She managed to get free but he pulled her back, pulled off her trousers and sexually assaulted her.

'The woman managed again to get away and out the door and went to security and told them what happened.

'Mr Strauss-Kahn checked out a short while after that'.

The spokesman added that Strauss-Kahn has been charged with attempted rape, carrying out a criminal sex act and unlawful imprisonment.

It was not clear why Strauss-Kahn was in New York. The IMF is based in Washington D.C. and he was due in Germany yesterday.

The IMF said Strauss-Kahn had been in New York on private business.

Christine Boutin, president of the Christian Democrat Party, suggested Strauss-Kahn may have been set up.

'I think it's very likely a trap was set for Dominique Strauss-Kahn and he fell into it,' she told France's BFM television. 'It's a political bomb for domestic politics.'

John Sheehan, a spokesman for the hotel, said its staff were co-operating with the authorities in the investigation.

Strauss-Kahn had been considered a leading contender to run on the Socialist Party ticket against President Nicolas Sarkozy in next year's French elections.

On Saturday far-right presidential contender Marine Le Pen said his bid for the top job was now 'doomed'.

A French government spokesman said yesterday it was important to remain cautious and reserve judgment over the arrest of Strauss-Kahn.

'We have to be extremely prudent in analysis, comments and consequences,' he told France 2 television.

The spokesman added that the government's position was to respect the presumption of innocence.

Strauss-Kahn has been dogged by scandal.

In 2008 he was embroiled in controversy over accusations that he had had a sexual relationship with one of his subordinates, Piroska Nagy, senior official in the IMF's Africa Department.

The IMF hired a law firm to launch an investigation. Ms Nagy left the fund and joined the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

He was cleared of harassment, favouritism and abuse of power following an inquiry - and kept his job, though he later apologised for an 'error of judgement'.

Strauss-Kahn, who was rejected by the French Socialists as their presidential candidate in 2006, gained international recognition as France's finance minister from 1997-99.

He is credited with preparing France for the adoption of the euro by reducing its deficit and persuading then-Prime Minister Lionel Jospin to sign up to an EU pact of fiscal prudence.

A former economics professor, Strauss-Kahn joined the Socialist party in 1976 and was elected to parliament in 1986 from the Val-d'Oise district, north of Paris.

He went on to become mayor of Sarcelles, a working-class immigrant suburb of Paris.

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 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.

Formed at the end of World War II, the IMF provides low-cost loans to countries in financial crisis.

After 2008, it became increasingly significant after brokering rescue packages for countries like Greece, Pakistan, Iceland, Hungary and Ukraine.

(Published by Daily Mail - May 16, 2011)