NEW YORK – The chief of the International Monetary Fund was ordered jailed without bail Monday on charges of trying to rape a maid, and prosecutors said they were investigating at least one other similar allegation against Dominique Strauss-Kahn.A haggard, unshaven and grim-looking Strauss-Kahn, his forehead furrowed beneath a slash of silver hair, made his first court appearance. Appearing before the Manhattan judge, he slumped at the defense table in a dark raincoat and open-collared shirt.
He is accused of attacking a maid who went in to clean his penthouse suite Saturday at the luxury Sofitel Hotel near Times Square. He is charged with attempted rape, sex abuse, a criminal sex act, unlawful imprisonment and forcible touching. The top count is punishable by five to 25 years in prison.
Strauss-Kahn's arrest stunned the global financial world and upended French presidential politics. Strauss-Kahn, a member of France's Socialist party, was widely considered the strongest potential challenger next year to President Nicolas Sarkozy.
"This battle has just begun," defense attorney Benjamin Brafman told reporters outside the courthouse. "Mr. Strauss-Kahn is innocent of these charges."
The weekend arrest and subsequent publicity brought a cascade of other allegations.
In France, the lawyer for a 31-year-old novelist said she was likely to file a criminal complaint accusing Strauss-Kahn of sexually assaulting her nine years ago.
A rival lawmaker also alleged, without offering evidence, that the potential French Socialist presidential candidate had victimized several maids during past stays at the Sofitel.
Assistant District Attorney John A. McConnell acknowledged in court Monday that New York authorities are investigating at least one other case of "conduct similar to the conduct alleged."
McConnell asked Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Melissa Jackson to hold Strauss-Kahn without bail, saying that his position as IMF head had taken him out of the country previously and that he was wealthy and doesn't live in New York.
"He has almost no incentive to stay in this country and every incentive to leave," Assistant District Attorney John A. McConnell said. "If he went to France, we would have no legal mechanism to guarantee his return to this country."
Defense attorneys had suggested bail be set at $1 million and promised the IMF managing director would remain in New York City.
Strauss-Kahn, who is known in France as DSK, was ordered held without bail until Friday, his next court date.
The 32-year-old maid told authorities that when she entered his spacious, $3,000-a-night suite early Saturday afternoon, she thought it was unoccupied. Instead, Strauss-Kahn emerged from the bathroom naked, chased her down a hallway and pulled her into a bedroom, where he sexually assaulted her, New York Police Department spokesman Paul J. Browne said.
The woman told police she fought him off, but then he dragged her into the bathroom, where he forced her to perform oral sex on him and tried to remove her pantyhose. The woman was able to break free again, escaped the room and told hotel staff what had happened, authorities said.
Strauss-Kahn was gone by the time detectives arrived moments later. He left his cellphone behind.
The NYPD discovered he was at Kennedy Airport and contacted officials at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs the airport. Port Authority police officers arrested him.
The maid was taken by police to a hospital and was treated for minor injuries.
"It's not the first time that DSK is involved in this kind of actions at the Sofitel," said Michel Debre, an outspoken lawmaker from Sarkozy's conservative party — a rival to Strauss-Kahn's Socialists.
"That's where he always stayed. It happened several times and for several years. Everyone knew it in the hotel," Debre was quoted Monday as saying on the Web site of French weekly L'Express.
The hotel declined to respond to his comments.
Pierre Moscovici, a French Socialist politician and former French deputy foreign minister, called the decision to jail Strauss-Kahn without bail "very, very severe."
"On the other hand, the accusation is serious," Moscovici told French television channel i-Tele.
"So far we haven't heard his side of the story. I'm waiting to hear it with a certain disbelief, because I have known him for 30 years, I've never considered him a violent man. So I'm waiting for him to talk, I want him to talk."
French viewers were stunned by the weekend images of the handcuffed Strauss-Kahn ducking stone-faced into a police car. In France, public figures are usually shielded from view in such circumstances.
The chief of Sarkozy's party, Jean-Francois Cope, said he told the president that he asked fellow party members to "proceed with caution and restraint" in their comments, and Sarkozy supported the idea.
"I was, like all Frenchmen, very disturbed by the news, very disturbed by the images that I saw," including of Strauss-Kahn handcuffed in New York, he said, adding that there was a principle of presumed innocence.
In addition to the allegations involving the hotel maid, Environment Minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet lamented that there is a "clear victim, which is France."
Strauss-Kahn, a former economics professor, served as French industry minister and finance minister in the 1990s, and is credited with preparing France for the adoption of the euro by taming its deficit.
He took over as head of the IMF in November 2007. The 187-nation lending agency provides help in the form of emergency loans for countries facing severe financial problems.
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