Evidence Said to Tie I.M.F. Chief to Housekeeper

@nytimesThe New York Times

Evidence Said to Tie I.M.F. Chief to Housekeeper

Evidence from the work clothes of a hotel housekeeper matched DNA samples taken from Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former managing director of the International Monetary Fund who has been charged with sexually assaulting her, a person briefed on the matter said Monday.

The test results were consistent with what law enforcement officials have said about the account provided by the woman, the person briefed in the matter said.

They are also consistent with what Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s lawyers have suggested would be his defense — that a sexual encounter had indeed occurred when she came to clean his room on May 14, but that it was consensual.

Other test results, including ones on samples taken from the hotel suite’s carpet, were pending.

The results described by the person briefed on the matter represented the first forensic evidence confirming that the 62-year-old Mr. Strauss-Kahn had indeed engaged in a sexual act with the housekeeper, a 32-year-old woman from Guinea who was granted asylum in the United States and is raising her 15-year-old daughter. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because the results had not been released.

Mr. Strauss-Kahn, in a brief letter resigning his post last week, denied “with the greatest possible firmness all of the allegations” against him.

One of his lawyers, Benjamin Brafman, declined to comment on the test results. But at Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s arraignment last Monday, in arguing for bail, he said the defense team believed “this is a very, very defensible case.”

“The forensic evidence, we believe, is not consistent with a forcible encounter,” he said.

But prosecutors last week contended that while the investigation was in its early stages, the evidence against Mr. Strauss-Kahn “is substantial” and “continues to grow every day.”

“The complainant in this case has offered a compelling and unwavering story about what occurred in the defendant’s room,” the prosecutor in the case, Artie McConnell, said. “She made immediate outcries to multiple witnesses, both to hotel staff and to police.”

The woman, he said, also picked Mr. Strauss-Kahn out of a line-up.

Mr. Strauss-Kahn — who was released on $1 million bail and a $5 million bond on Friday, essentially under house arrest in a temporary apartment just steps from Wall Street in Lower Manhattan — remained cloistered on Monday.

His original plan to take up residence in a luxury Upper East Side building upon his release from jail fell through on Friday after neighbors complained about his alleged crimes and the international news media encampment that materialized on their doorstep.

Mr. Brafman visited his client on Monday afternoon for about an hour but did not answer reporters’ questions when he left.

John Eligon contributed reporting.

Posted in: