Strauss-Kahn, hotel maid agree to settle sex civil suit

By: Barry Leibowitz
Topics: Daily Blotter

Former International Monetary Fund leader, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, waves as he leaves a polling station after voting in the French presidential elections in Sarcelles, May 6, 2012.

/ AP Photo/Zacharie Scheurer, File

(AP) NEW YORK - Former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn and a hotel maid who accused him of trying to rape her have reached an agreement to settle her lawsuit, a person familiar with the case said Thursday.

The person spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private negotiation. The details of the deal were unknown.

The person said Bronx Supreme Court Judge Douglas McKeon facilitated the agreement, which hasn't been signed.

The deal would end a legal saga that forced Strauss-Kahn's resignation as head of the IMF and ended his French presidential ambitions last year. Prosecutors dropped related criminal charges.

The housekeeper, Nafissatou Diallo, said Strauss-Kahn attacked her when she arrived to clean his upscale Manhattan hotel suite in May 2011. He said their encounter was consensual and called the lawsuit defamatory.

Strauss-Kahn, 63, initially argued that he had diplomatic immunity from the lawsuit. A judge turned down that claim in May.

The charges halted his political career and seemed to open a floodgate of further sex-crime accusations in France, some going back years, against a man who had been seen as a randy charmer. He has acknowledged some "libertine" behavior but denied doing anything criminal or violent.

The Associated Press generally does not name people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly, as Diallo has done.

The New York Times first reported the agreement.

In August, a separate case against Strauss-Kahn centered on allegations of rape in a Washington hotel was dropped after prosecutors said the accuser, an escort, changed her account to say no rape was involved in the encounter when Strauss-Kahn headed the IMF.

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by michaelamsterdam November 30, 2012 11:29 AM EST: About the only way you'll hurt a self-entitled, arrogant SOB like Strauss-Kahn is to shoot him...right in the wallet!

Pretty pricy for what was described as, "the mere lifting of a domestic's skirt"

But even six months on Riker's would have altered his attitudes concerning rape for the remainder of his undeservedly pampered life

Pity...

He really could have greatly benifitted from e very close-up study of the crime of forcable rape...

I know that I would've benifitted from ocasionally thinking about his undergoing such a penetrating, in-depth course of instruction

Maybe next time...and with this bum, there will definately be a next time...

Perhaps he will commit that offence in a country where they cut stuff off...depending on your crime; Reply to this comment

by Mikzy November 30, 2012 1:08 AM EST

So he did try to rape her. Interesting...

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by Also-fyi November 30, 2012 7:31 AM EST: http://www.france24.com/en/. France24 News reports the out of court settlement amount is $6 Million . . .