Anne Sinclair, wife of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former manager of the International Monetary Fund, arrives for his bail hearing. (AP)
Accused rapist Dominique Strauss-Kahn was granted $1 million cash bail by a Manhattan judge this afternoon after prosecutors announced he had been indicted for trying to rape a hotel maid.
Supreme Court Judge Michael Obus said that Strauss-Kahn, 62, can be released on bail with a GPS-enabled bracelet.
The judge also said Strauss-Kahn must have one armed guard with him at all times and have a $5 million insurance bond backed by US property.
Strauss-Kahn, a French citizen, is expected to spend another night at Rikers Island before the bail package is signed off on Friday morning.
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The judge also set an arraignment hearing, when Strauss-Kahn will formally answer charges, for June 6.
At the start of the hearing, prosecutors said that Strauss-Kahn had been indicted for sexually assaulting a hotel maid.
His lawyers promised that, if released, he won’t flee to France. They also asked that Strauss-Kahn be placed under house arrest in New York and wear an electronic device to monitor his movements.
The defense team had made a similar request on Monday that had been denied by another judge.
Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance spoke after the bail matter in an apparent attempt to address French media criticism that Strauss-Kahn was being singled out for unfairly harsh treatment.
Strauss-Kahn’s indictment was voted Wednesday by “An independent body comprised of 23 impartial jurors,” Vance told reporters. “The work of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office will be guided in this case, as it is every case, by one principle: to do whatever is right, without fear or favor, wherever that might lead,” he said.
Strauss-Kahn is charged with attacking a 32-year-old maid on Saturday afternoon at his Manhattan hotel suite. The West African immigrant told police that he chased her down a hallway, forced her to perform oral sex and tried to remove her stockings.
Strauss-Kahn has spent five humiliating days in custody after he was grabbed off an Air France jet and busted on felony sex charges on Saturday for an alleged attack on a 32-year-old woman working as a maid at the tony Sofitel New York hotel in Midtown, where he’d been staying on a still-unexplained visit to New York.
Strauss-Kahn, wearing an open collar shirt and charcoal suit, appeared stoic in Manhattan Supreme Court as the judge listened to both sides.
The defense argued that Strauss-Kahn is not a flight risk, although the prosecution countered that he was since he was on a Paris-bound plane at the time of his arrest.
Prosecutors called Strauss-Kahn’s exit on Saturday “unusually hasty.”
“Our position is that there is no bail package that will insure his return,” said Assistant DA Artie McConnell. “We have a defendant in this case who has shown an propensity for compulsive criminal conduct.”
McConnell also argued that fitting Strauss-Kahn with a bracelet “is really not sufficient at this time.”
A lawyer for Strauss-Kahn, William Taylor, said Sinclair had rented an apartment in Manhattan where her husband could be confined and watched by an armed monitor.
“In our view, no bail is required to confirm Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s appearance,” he said. “He is an honorable man.”
His wife, New York-born millionaire art heiress and journalist Anne Sinclair, 62, and daughter from a previous marriage, Camille Strauss-Kahn, 26, a Columbia University grad student, were in the gallery as Strauss-Kahn was led into the courtroom.
Sinclair gave Strauss-Kahn a tight-lipped smile before the hearing began. Some 100 reporters packed the courtroom as Strauss-Kahn awaited the judge’s decision.
The decision was the latest chapter in an astounding turn of events that saw the high-flying lothario plunge from dizzying heights of power and prestige to land in an 11-by-13 foot isolation cell on Rikers island, where he was so distraught prison brass put him on 24-hour suicide watch.
In the days since his arrest, a series of lurid stories have emerged, with women from Strauss-Kahn’s past coming forward to accuse him of obnoxious sexual behavior or worse.
Even the madam who provided hookers for horndog ex-Gov. Eliot Spitzer jumped into the act.
Kristin Davis, 35, claims Strauss-Kahn was once a client with an appetite for high-price hookers, The Times of London reported.
This as Strauss-Kahn resigned Wednesday night as head of the IMF, saying he “needed all my strength, all my time, and all my energy to proving my innocence.”
The hotel maid has been kept out of sight along with her 15-year-old daughter by the Manhattan DA’s office, who’ve stashed them in an undisclosed location.
Strauss-Kahn yesterday resigned as director of the IMF, saying he needed to focus on clearing his name.