Prosecutors will agree to drop the charges against former International Monetary Fund head Dominique Strauss-Kahn within two weeks, The New York Post reports.
Strauss-Kahn is accused of attempting to rape a New York hotel maid in May. He was arrested on the day of the alleged crime and resigned as managing director of the International Monetary Fund shortly thereafter.
The charges will be dropped on Strauss-Kahn’s next court date, set for two weeks from now, or even sooner, a top investigator told the newspaper. The investigator called the charges’ dismissal “a certainty,” according to the Post.
Doubts were raised about the credibility of the hotel maid last week as prosecutors investigated her claims. Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. agreed to release Strauss-Kahn without bail.
Just as news came that the maid’s charges would be dropped, new accusations against the former IMF head came to light. In a criminal complaint expected to be filed this week, French novelist Tristane Banon will accuse Strauss-Kahn of attempted rape, the Wall Street Journal reports. Banon says Strauss-Kahn tried to rape her during a February 2003 interview. Strauss-Kahn called the encounter “a figment of her imagination” through one of his lawyers.
French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde was elected IMF head after Strauss-Kahn resigned, the first woman to lead the organization since its inception in 1944. Even if the charges against Strauss-Kahn are dropped, the IMF will stand by her election, a senior IMF official told National Journal on Friday. Lagarde’s IMF term begins Tuesday.
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