Maid in Strauss-Kahn case could be deported from US

NEW YORK: The Guinean maid, who accused former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexual assault, may face perjury charges and she can also be deported from the US following claims that she lied under oath, a news report said.

The 32-year-old hotel maid is under intense scrutiny after New York prosecutors told a court on Friday that they had found contradictions in her story which may seriously damage her credibility as a witness, the 'Daily Telegraph' online reported.

Moreover, local media reports also alleged that the maid at Sofitel Hotel was doing double duty as a prostitute, collecting cash on the side from male guests, and that Strauss-Kahn may have misunderstood the situation on May 14. Strauss-Kahn, 62, was accused of forcing the maid at the Sofitel hotel in Manhattan to perform oral sex. He was bundled out of a Paris-bound flight and taken into custody. He claims their sexual encounter was consensual. But the case against him is hanging by a thread with reports claiming that soon after the incident, she is recorded telling a drug dealer in Arizona: "Don't worry, this guy has a lot of money. I know what I'm doing."

But what is certain is that the maid told detectives and prosecutors that afterwards "she fled to an area of the main hallway" and "waited there until she observed the defendant leave suite 2806". A letter filed to court by Cyrus Vance Jr, the Manhattan district attorney, said: "The complainant testified to this version of events when questioned in the Grand Jury about her actions."

However, she "has since admitted that this account was false" and that she went on to clean another room, and returned to clean Strauss-Kahn's suite, before reporting the incident to her supervisor, the newspaper said.

Vance's letter also stated the maid admitted in interviews that the information she gave on her 2004 application for asylum in the US - including that she had been gang raped - "was false". She "certified under penalty of perjury" that the application was true.

Under New York law, testifying falsely in a way that is material to a case is perjury in the first degree, a class D felony punishable with up to seven years in prison.

Arrivals to the US may also be deported if convicted of "fraudulently obtaining immigration benefits" through false statements.