DNA may be key to IMF chief's case

The fate of the embattled chief of the International Monetary Fund, accused of sexually assaulting a hotel maid in Manhattan, may rest with the results of DNA tests being done by the NYPD, legal experts said Tuesday.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, 62, has denied attacking the maid at the posh Sofitel hotel in Manhattan Saturday. Tuesday, European colleagues of Strauss-Kahn and other international financiers called on him to resign his post as the head of the IMF. He was being held at Rikers Island in solitary confinement and on suicide watch Tuesday night, officials said.

He is expected back in court on Friday.

Police have said that DNA tests of samples taken from Strauss-Kahn and from the hotel room where he is accused of attacking a maid will take up to a week to process. The results will be crucial to how the legal team crafts his defense, experts said.

"The forensic evidence will determine if this case is tried by jury or disposed of by plea," said James DiPietro, a former state prosecutor who practices criminal law in Brooklyn and isn't connected to the case.

Reacting to reports that blood may have been found on sheets in the penthouse suite where the attack allegedly took place, DiPietro said if the fluid is found to have come from Strauss-Kahn, it could present a problem for him.

"Most consensual sex doesn't wind up with blood," DiPietro said. "If . . . blood is this gentleman's, the defense camp has serious problems."

Benjamin Brafman, Strauss-Kahn's lawyer, declined to comment Tuesday on evidence.

James Kousouris, a Manhattan defense attorney, agreed that the DNA tests will be crucial to proving or disproving the victim's claims.

The victim, identified as a 32-year-old woman from Guinea, lives in the Bronx, where her neighbors said she was a quiet person.

"She has a great quality and demeanor about her," said Mark Gangadeen, 47, who lives in the same building as the victim. "I don't think she would make an accusation like that without it being a real one."

"She's scared. She's scared," said another neighbor, Rosa Andujar, 44. "I would be, too. She's a normal, beautiful person who goes to work."

In a statement to The Associated Press, the victim's attorney, Jeffrey Shapiro, of Manhattan, said she had a 15-year-old daughter.

"It's not just my opinion that this woman is honest. The New York City Police Department reached the same conclusion." Shapiro added, "This is a woman with no agenda."

Strauss-Kahn has made no attempt to injure himself, a person familiar with his incarceration said Tuesday. An assessment of Strauss-Kahn and other factors, including that it's his first time in jail, led to the precaution, the person said.

Being on suicide watch at Rikers means that an inmate is watched constantly and given a specially designed prison jumpsuit and shoes with no laces, the person said.

In Manhattan Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Strauss-Kahn "is obviously not in a position to run the IMF."

With Matthew Chayes,

The Associated Press

and Bloomberg News