Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn asked a judge today to dismiss a civil suit filed by a hotel maid who accused him of sexual assault, saying he was immune from such a suit under international law when it was filed.
His lawyers filed a motion to dismiss the suit in a New York state court in the Bronx today.
A grand jury had indicted Mr Strauss-Kahn, the former managing director of the International Monetary Fund, based on the woman's accusation that he had forced her to perform oral sex in a luxury suite on May 14th, but prosecutors later asked a judge to drop the criminal charges because they had lost faith in her credibility, and the judge dismissed the case.
Mr Strauss-Kahn has said he feels "infinite regret" over his sexual encounter with a New York hotel maid, acknowledging a "moral error" but insisting he did not act violently.
In his first interview since his arrest on sexual assault charges in May, Mr Strauss-Kahn told French television earlier this month he regretted his "inappropriate" sexual encounter in the Manhattan hotel, intimating he might have been the victim of a trap.
Responding gravely and slowly to questions from TF1 anchor Claire Chazal – a friend of his wife, Anne Sinclair – Mr Strauss-Kahn said: "What happened involved neither violence nor aggression nor any criminal act. It was not a paid-for encounter, it was a moral lapse. I'm not proud of it and I regret it, and I don't think I'll ever stop regretting it."
He wronged not only his wife and family, but the French people, he said, adding: "It was a moral error . . . I regret it infinitely."
The case against Mr Strauss-Kahn for alleged sexual assault was dropped last month after doubts were raised about the credibility of his accuser, Nafissatou Diallo. Appearing pale and uncomfortable, the former finance minister held aloft a copy of the New York public prosecutor's report into the case and said there were no traces of violence on either him or Ms Diallo, a 32-year-old Guinean immigrant.
"It was the prosecutor who said there was no trace of violence," he said. "The prosecutor said Nafissatou Diallo lied about everything . . . The charges were abandoned. They were abandoned because there was no basis on which to pursue them."