WASHINGTON — The International Monetary Fund says its embattled managing director, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, intends to resign, effective immediately, as he faces sexual assault charges in New York.
The IMF's executive board released a letter from the French executive late Wednesday in which he denied the allegations lodged against him but said that with "great sadness" he felt compelled to resign. He said he was thinking of his family and that he wanted to protect the IMF.
It is with infinite sadness that I feel compelled today to present to the Executive Board my resignation from my post of Managing Director of the IMF,” he said in a statement issued Wednesday. “I think at this time first of my wife—whom I love more than anything—of my children, of my family, of my friends.”
His resignation comes just days after he was taken off an Air France plane at Kennedy International Airport and arrested in connection with the alleged attack.
Mr. Strauss-Kahn, a former French finance minister, had been expected to declare his candidacy for the French presidency soon. He was seen as the figure most likely to oust President Nicolas Sarkozy.
In issuing his resignation Wednesday, Mr. Strauss-Kahn said, “I want to say that I deny with the greatest possible firmness all of the allegations that have been made against me.”
News of the arrest produced an earthquake of shock, outrage, disbelief and embarrassment throughout France.
Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s extramarital affairs have long been considered an open secret. But the legal charges against him — which include attempted rape, forced oral sex and an effort to sequester another person against her will — are of an entirely different magnitude, even in France and elsewhere in continental Europe, where voters have generally shown more lenience than Americans toward the sexual behavior of prominent politicians, most notably the sexual escapades of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy.
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