The po­lice­man said Strauss-Kahn ap­peared to have left in a hur­ry. In the room, in­ves­ti­ga­tors found his cell­phone, which he had left be­hind, and one law en­force­ment of­fi­cial said that the in­ves­ti­ga­tion un­cov­ered foren­sic ev­i­dence that would con­tain DNA.He was ar­rest­ed at about 4.40 pm on Sat­ur­day at Kennedy Air­port, when two de­tec­tives of the Port Au­thor­i­ty sud­den­ly board­ed Air France Flight 23, as the plane idled at the de­par­ture gate, said John P L Kel­ly, a spokesman for the agency.

"It was 10 min­utes be­fore its sched­uled de­par­ture," Kel­ly said. "They were just about to close the doors." Kel­ly said that Mr Strauss-Kahn was trav­el­ling alone and that he was not hand­cuffed dur­ing the ap­pre­hen­sion."He com­plied with the de­tec­tives' di­rec­tions," Mr Kel­ly said.The Port Au­thor­i­ty of­fi­cers were act­ing on in­for­ma­tion from the Po­lice De­part­ment, whose de­tec­tives had been in­ves­ti­gat­ing the as­sault of a fe­male em­ploy­ee of Sof­i­tel New York, at 45 West 44th Street, near Times Square. Work­ing quick­ly, the city de­tec­tives learned he had board­ed a flight at Kennedy Air­port to leave the coun­try.Strauss-Kahn's lawyer, Ben­jamin Braf­man, told The As­so­ci­at­ed Press that his client will plead not guilty.

He and an­oth­er lawyer went in and out of the Harlem po­lice precinct where Strauss-Kahn was be­ing held ear­ly Sun­day af­ter­noon, and de­clined to an­swer re­porters' ques­tions un­til the ar­raign­ment, which was ex­pect­ed lat­er Sun­day."He de­nies all the charges against him," Braf­man said. "And that's all I can re­al­ly say right now."Braf­man, is one of the city's most high-pro­file de­fense at­tor­neys. His clients have in­clud­ed mob­sters and such celebri­ties as Sean "P Did­dy" Combs and ex-New York Gi­ants star Plaxi­co Bur­ress. Strauss-Kahn, 62, was ar­rest­ed less than four hours af­ter the al­leged as­sault, plucked from first class on a Paris-bound Air France flight that was just about to leave the gate at John F Kennedy In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port.

The white-haired, well-dressed, thrice-mar­ried fa­ther of four was alone when he checked in­to the lux­u­ry Sof­i­tel ho­tel, not far from Man­hat­tan's Times Square, on Fri­day af­ter­noon, po­lice said. It wasn't clear why he was in New York. The IMF is based in Wash­ing­ton, and he had been due in Ger­many on Sun­day to meet with Chan­cel­lor An­gela Merkel.A for­mer eco­nom­ics pro­fes­sor, Strauss-Kahn served as French in­dus­try min­is­ter and fi­nance min­is­ter in the 1990s, and is cred­it­ed with prepar­ing France for the adop­tion of the eu­ro by tam­ing its deficit.

He took over as head of the IMF in No­vem­ber 2007. The 187-na­tion lend­ing agency pro­vides help in the form of emer­gency loans for coun­tries fac­ing se­vere fi­nan­cial prob­lems.Sarkozy, who did not com­ment pub­licly Sun­day, had cham­pi­oned Strauss-Kahn to run the IMF Po­lit­i­cal strate­gists saw it as a way for Sarkozy to get a po­ten­tial chal­lenger far from the French lime­light.Car­o­line Atkin­son, an IMF spokes­woman, is­sued a state­ment Sun­day that said the agency would have no com­ment on the New York case. She re­ferred all in­quiries to Strauss-Kahn's per­son­al lawyer and said the "IMF re­mains ful­ly func­tion­ing and op­er­a­tional."