IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn charged over sex attack on maid in NY hotel

A potential challenger to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and head of the Inteational Monetary Fund, was hauled off a plane at New York’s Kennedy Airport yesterday, arrested and charged with a sex attack on a hotel maid.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, 62, nicknamed 'The Great Seducer' in France, was about to fly to Paris when police boarded the Air France jet.

New York prosecutors confirmed that 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.

Held: Strauss-Kahn is believed to have been taken to this police station in New York after he was arrested on board a flight at JFK airport

Strauss-Kahn is expected to be brought before a state court judge later today.

His attoey, Benjamin Brafman, said in an email he 'will plead not guilty'.

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

He was taken to the offices of the Manhattan Special Victims Unit, which deals with sex-related crimes and was being questioned by detectives last night.

The maid was taken by police to a local hospital.

Dogged by scandal: Strauss-Kahn, seen with his wife and leading French joualist Anne Sinclair, was caught up in a sex scandal involving an affair with an underling in 2008

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.

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

William Murray, a spokesman for the IMF in Washington, said the fund had no immediate comment.

Strauss-Kahn, who is married to a leading French television news reporter, Anne Sinclair, had been considered a leading contender to run on the socialist party’s ticket against President Nicolas Sarkozy in next year’s French elections.

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

But he 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.

Scene of the alleged attack: The Sofitel New York in the heart of the city's theatre district

Last minute hitch: Air France Flight 23 from JFK to France took an unexpected tu, even before it had left the runway

Ms Nagy left the fund and joined the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

He kept his job, though he later apologised for an ‘error in judgment’.

Strauss-Kahn, who was rejected by the French Socialists as their presidential candidate in 2006, gained inteational 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 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.

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.