NEW YORK – Over the objections of prosecutors, a judge agreed Thursday to free former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn from jail on $1 million bail on the condition he be confined to a New York apartment under armed guard while he awaits trial on attempted-rape charges.
The 62-year-old French banker and diplomat briefly wore an expression of relief after Supreme Court Justice Michael J. Obus announced his decision in a packed courtroom. Later, Strauss-Kahn blew a kiss toward his wife.
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The ruling didn’t immediately free Strauss-Kahn from the city’s bleak Rikers Island jail. Authorities need time to review the security arrangements involved in his house arrest, which lawyers said would be at an apartment rented by his wife.
The attorney who represented Strauss-Kahn at the hearing, William Taylor, called the ruling “a great relief for the family.”
“He’s going back to Rikers tonight and we expect him to be released tomorrow,” he said.
Strauss-Kahn will not only have to post the full $1 million but will also have to take out a $5 million insurance bond. A trial date was not immediately set.
The banker is accused of attacking a 32-year-old housekeeper Saturday at his $3,000-a-night 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.
He spent nearly a week behind bars — most of that at Rikers — after a judge denied him bail Monday. At that hearing, prosecutors warned that Strauss-Kahn might flee to France and escape justice in the United States, like film director Roman Polanski.
This time, Strauss-Kahn went before a different judge, and also offered to place himself under house arrest. Obus added the requirement that he post the $5 million insurance.
The bail decision came less than a day after Strauss-Kahn resigned as managing director of the International Monetary Fund, the powerful organization that makes emergency loans to countries in financial crisis.
Also Thursday, prosecutors announced that Strauss-Kahn had been formally indicted on the sex charges. Without the indictment, authorities would have been unable to detain him for longer than a week.
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