Head Of IMF Arrested For Sexual Assault

Some excitement at Kennedy:

The managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, was taken off an Air France plane at Kennedy International Airport minutes before it was to take off for Paris on Saturday and arrested in connection with the sexual attack of a maid at a Midtown Manhattan hotel, the authorities said.

Mr. Strauss-Kahn, 62, who was widely expected to become the Socialist candidate for the French presidency, was apprehended by detectives of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in the first class section of the jetliner, and immediately turned over to detectives from the Midtown South Precinct, which covers the part of Manhattan where the hotel is, officials said.

The New York Police Department took Mr. Strauss-Kahn into custody, where he was “being questioned in connection with the sexual assault of a hotel chambermaid earlier this afternoon,” Deputy Commissioner Paul J. Browne, the department’s chief spokesman, said Saturday evening.

A spokeswoman for the Manhattan district attorney’s office said Mr. Strauss-Kahn had not yet been “formally charged” in the case and was not expected to be arraigned before a judge until later in the evening.

...

In the New York case, Mr. Browne said it was about 1 p.m. on Saturday when the maid, a 32-year-old woman, entered to clean Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s room.

“He came out of the bathroom, fully naked, and attempted to sexually assault her,” Mr. Browne said.

At some point during the assault, the woman broke free, Mr. Browne said, and “she fled, reported it to other hotel personnel who called 911. When the police arrived, he was not there.” Mr. Browne said it appeared that Mr. Strauss-Kahn left in a hurry. Investigators found his cellphone in the room, which he had left behind, he said.

He added: “We learned that he was on an Air France plane, and the plane was held and he was taken into custody.”

Mr. Browne said an Emergency Medical Services ambulance arrived at the hotel to take the maid to Roosevelt Hospital for what Mr. Browne described as treatment for “minor injuries.”

No matter the outcome of Saturday’s arrest, it will likely throw the French political world into turmoil and the Socialist Party into an embarrassed confusion.

When picked up by the Port Authority detectives, Strauss-Kahn said "I work for the IMF - this is what I do for a living, try and fuck other people who don't want to be fucked. If you have a problem with it, change the system, don't arrest me!"

Okay, he didn't really say that.

But he could have.

Actually, he should have.

What a creep.

Too bad he didn't have to spend the weekend in Riker's the way most people who get picked up on a Saturday have to.