The woman was able to break free again, escaped the room and told hotel staff what had happened, and they called police, authorities said. Strauss-Kahn bolted the hotel room, leaving behind his cell phone, police told the AP.

The NYPD learned Strauss-Kahn was on a plane bound for France and asked officers with the Port Authority of New York to board the plane and remove him.

At 4:40 p.m., about 10 minutes before Air France Flight 23 was to take off Saturday, officers with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey removed Strauss-Kahn, authorities said. They did not handcuff him. They then turned him over to the police.

An economist and lawyer who has gained prominence while leading the IMF through one of the world’s worst financial crises, Strauss-Kahn joined the organization in 2007 with the support of the United States and many European nations.

He previously served as France’s finance minister and is the subject of intense speculation in France on whether he will declare his candidacy for president as a member of the Socialist Party. He unsuccessfully ran for his party’s nomination in the last election.

At the IMF, Strauss-Kahn has overseen a number of crucial emergency loan packages for troubled economies, most recently for Greece and Pakistan.

The organization also is being eyed to help orchestrate potential bailouts for Portugal and Ireland as Europe suffers a painful debt crisis. And it is working to help Egypt as that country tries to stabilize its economy in the post-Hosni Mubarak era.

“This sordid episode — no matter how it ultimately plays out — will spell the end of Strauss-Kahn as an effective leader of the IMF even if he retains his position, which is highly unlikely,” said Eswar Shanker Prasad, an international economics professor at Cornell University. “With Strauss-Kahn’s departure, the IMF can no longer be counted on to watch Europe’s back as it becomes increasingly clear that the EU-IMF program in Greece is not working.”

Prasad added, “Additional uncertainty is the last thing that Europe needs right now, but that will be the reality as the IMF absorbs this body blow and reorients itself to a post-Strauss-Kahn era.”

Earlier controversies

Strauss-Kahn, who took over the IMF in 2007 after being nominated by Sarkozy, was involved the following year in a scandal involving an extramarital affair with a woman who headed the fund’s Africa department, and who left the IMF under a voluntary retirement plan. The bank’s board, after considering whether Strauss-Kahn was guilty of abuse of authority, reprimanded him for what it called a serious error of judgment but kept him in his job.

His wife, the former television interviewer Anne Sinclair, publicly forgave him for what she described in her blog as a one-night stand.

Sunday, Sinclair expressed disbelief that her husband could have done what he is accused of and called on all to exercise “decency and restraint.”

“I do not believe for one second the accusations brought against my husband,” she said in a statement relayed by Agence France-Presse. “I have no doubt his innocence will be established.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/imf-chief-arrested-in-alleged-sex-assault/2011/05/15/AF1SDD4G_story_1.html

DSK thought IMF stood for Inveterate Muff Fiend

i read in a different story the woman was a maid at the hotel

what is the IMF? Is it International Monetary Fund? heard of it but have no idea what it is


the perp looks like he has a stroke history

(and NO u guys not THAT kinda "stroke")

ya an emplpyee benefit she could do with out

He had a power rush to his little head! It got big ideas. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

Had it have been me they would have tazered me and dragged me from the plane done up like Hannibal Lector.



Bet he beats the rap somehow!

Yup...He'll pull some diplomatic strings and beat the rap