Former IMF chief released from jail but unable to move into $14,000-a-month flat as building's residents objected
Dominique Strauss-Kahn was granted bail on Friday but the former International Monetary Fund boss is finding New York an unwelcoming city.
Strauss-Kahn had been hoping to move into a $14,000 (£8,620) a month apartment in the luxurious Bristol Plaza building on the upper east side of Manhattan – a building that bills itself on its website as "Better than a hotel". But the building's management barred Strauss-Kahn before he could even get out of jail.
Late on Friday night he was reported to have moved into far less salubrious accommodation in downtown Manhattan, although the new arrangement will be a huge improvement on the cell in New York's notorious Rikers Island prison, where he has spent the past four nights.
Anne Sinclair, Strauss-Kahn's wife and a former journalist, was said to have hired two apartments in the Bristol Plaza. News of his new abode attracted a huge media scrum outside the building and objections from residents. Police had to put up barricades to hold back the TV crews.
The Bristol Plaza is located in one of Manhattan's most exclusive neighbourhoods. It is positioned just a few blocks from designer department stores Bloomingdales and Barneys.
Speaking anonymously, one resident said the media scrum was the first news he had heard of Strauss-Kahn's arrival. "It's outrageous. You think someone would have told us. I am going to object to this," he said.
Strauss-Kahn will now stay in a corporate apartment near the site of the former World Trade Center, managed by Stroz Friedberg LLC, the investigations and surveillance company that oversaw the house arrest of fraudster Bernard Madoff as he awaited trial.
A judge granted Strauss-Kahn bail on Thursday, while he fights charges that he attempted to rape a hotel chambermaid. The former IMF boss has posted a $1m cash deposit as well as a $5m insurance bond as bail.
He is to be kept under house arrest, wear an electronic tag to monitor his movements and pay $200,000-a-month to hire a 24-hour, gun-toting security team authorised to use force should he attempt to flee.
"I expect you will be here when we need you," judge Michael Obus said when granting bail. "If there is the slightest problem, we can withdraw conditions."
Strauss-Kahn resigned from his position at the IMF on Thursday. The institution is set to hand him a $250,000 golden handshake and a life-long pension that would be "far, far less than that amount in subsequent years," said the IMF.
The former IMF head was jailed after he was seized on an Air France plane at JFK airport last Saturday, just moments before it took off. Strauss-Kahn will formally answer charges on 6 June.
The 32-year-old hotel maid who has accused Strauss-Kahn of attempted rape is currently in hiding. She gave details of her ordeal to a grand jury this week and told police she entered his hotel room to clean it, thinking it was empty. He then allegedly jumped from a bathroom naked and attacked her. He denies all charges.
It wasn't all bad news for Strauss-Kahn however. Tristane Banon, a journalist who claimed Strauss-Kahn sexually assaulted her eight years ago, said she wouldn't file a criminal complaint against him for the time being.
Banon's lawyer, David Koubbi, told BFM TV that the journalist would decide later about filing a complaint because she didn't "want to be manipulated by the US justice system".