Sex-assault case against former IMF chief to be dropped

Vance's decision would end the case with no determination on whether the encounter between Strauss-Kahn, who was then the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and a hotel housekeeper who went to clean his suite was criminal or consensual, several law-enforcement officials have said.

While there has been widespread speculation that Vance would drop the case, it is nonetheless an extraordinary turn of events, for both Strauss-Kahn, 62, an enormously powerful international banker and a leading candidate for the French presidency before his arrest, and his accuser, Nafissatou Diallo, a 33-year-old immigrant from Guinea.

Her credibility as a witness began to crumble after prosecutors discovered what they characterized as a series of lies she had told, though none bore directly on her version of the encounter with Strauss-Kahn.