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Strauss-Kahn Faces New Sexual Assault Complaint

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- As Dominique Strauss-Kahn enjoys his new-found freedom in New York City, there's a new lawsuit in France against the former the International Monetary Fund chief.

Strauss-Kahn was released from house arrest last week but is still facing charges he sexually assaulted a hotel maid at a midtown hotel. But now, a novelist in France says she'll formally file a lawsuit against Strauss-Kahn, accusing him of attempted rape.

The writer, Tristane Bano, says Strauss-Kahn attacked her in 2002. Strauss-Kahn went on the offensive against his French accuser, saying through his legal team that he planned to file his own criminal complaint of slander against her.

Banon, 31, said on a 2007 television show that she had been attacked five years earlier by a politician she had interviewed for a book. She later identified the man as Strauss-Kahn.

"It finished very violently,'' she said on the television show. "I kicked him. He opened my bra. He tried to undo my jeans. It finished very badly.''

Her lawyer David Koubbi said Banon had been dissuaded from filing charges by her mother, a regional councilor in Strauss-Kahn's Socialist party.

Banon came forward again after Strauss-Kahn's was arrested in New York in May, but Koubbi said his client had no intention of pressing charges while the American prosecution was going on because the two cases should be kept separate.

The New York sexual assault case against Strauss-Kahn was badly weakened last week after prosecutors' publicly expressed doubts about the credibility of the hotel maid who accused him of forcing her to perform oral sex.

Sources told CBS 2 that the District Attorney's investigators learned the alleged victim may have been laundering money for a drug ring, as well as a host of other credibility issues.

Strauss-Kahn's passport is still being held. He is free to travel anywhere within the country but is due back in a Manhattan court in two weeks.

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(TM and Copyright 2011 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2011 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

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