The former head of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, has filed a $1 million countersuit against the hotel maid who accused him of sexual assault, costing him his job and any chance of being elected French president.
New York police arrested Mr Strauss-Kahn a year ago when hotel maid Nafissatou Diallo accused him of forcible oral sex and trying to rape her in his luxury suite at the Sofitel Hotel in Manhattan.
Prosecutors later dropped charges after losing confidence in Ms Diallo’s credibility.
The countersuit was filed on Monday on the anniversary of the incident and a day before François Hollande was sworn in as president of France.
Mr Strauss-Kahn denied the allegations, saying the sexual encounter with Ms Diallo was consensual. Ms Diallo nonetheless sued Mr Strauss- Kahn in the Supreme Court in the Bronx, New York City, where she lived at the time.
Mr Strauss-Kahn denies all wrongdoing in the countersuit and accuses Ms Diallo of “knowingly and intentionally making a false report to law enforcement authorities”.