Hopefully he gets thrown into general population on Rikers Island.

NEW YORK (AP) — The leader of the International Monetary Fund and candidate for president of France was pulled from an airplane moments before he was to fly to Paris and was being questioned Saturday by police in connection with a sexual assault of a maid at a hotel, police said.

The 32-year-old woman told authorities that she entered Strauss-Kahn’s room at the Sofitel near Manhattan’s Times Square at about 1 p.m. Saturday and he emerged from the bedroom naked, threw her down and tried to sexually assault her, Browne said. She somehow broke free and escaped the room and told hotel staff what had happened, authorities said. They called police.

When New York City police detectives arrived moments later, Strauss-Kahn had already left the hotel, leaving behind his cellphone and other personal items, Browne said. “It looked like he got out of there in a hurry,” Browne said. . . .

Strauss-Kahn, rejected by the French Socialists as their presidential candidate in 2006, gained international recognition as France’s finance minister in 1997-99.

A former economics professor, Strauss-Kahn joined the Socialist party in 1976 and was elected to parliament in 1986 from the Val-d’Oise district, north of Paris. He went on to become mayor of Sarcelles, a working-class immigrant suburb of Paris.