NY Judge to Decide on Strauss-Kahn Civil Lawsuit Next Week
A U.S. judge will rule next week whether former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn will face a civil lawsuit filed by a hotel maid accusing him of sexual assault, a court spokesman said Wednesday.
A ruling in the case against the disgraced French politician had initially been expected on Friday.
But a spokesman for a New York state court in the Bronx, David Bookstaver, told Agence France Presse by email that the ruling would now be issued on Tuesday at 10:00 am (1200 GMT).
Lawyers for Strauss-Kahn asked Judge Douglas McKeon in March to throw out the suit brought by Nafissatou Diallo, arguing that the Frenchman was protected by diplomatic immunity as head of the International Monetary Fund.
Diallo, who is seeking unspecified damages, says Strauss-Kahn forced her into oral sex in his luxury hotel room in Manhattan, where she had entered to clean.
Strauss-Kahn says consensual sex took place. New York prosecutors dropped criminal charges against the former high-flying politician, saying that Diallo's story was undermined by lies and inconsistencies.
Strauss-Kahn faces separate, sex-related charges in France, where until the scandal in New York last year he had been seen as a leading contender for the presidency.
Opinion polls at the time had pointed to Strauss-Kahn beating incumbent right-wing President Nicolas Sarkozy as a socialist.
After Strauss-Kahn's fall from grace, Francois Hollande won the Socialist Party's primary nomination and beat Sarkozy in the first round Sunday. The two will face off in a May 6 runoff.
Source: Agence France Presse
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