Lawyers for the maid accusing Dominique Strauss-Kahn of assault tell Christopher Dickey that criminal charges will likely be dropped this week—and the ex-IMF chief could soon be back in France. 
 
 Will a jury ever decide whether Dominique Strauss-Kahn sexually assaulted a hotel chambermaid? The chances of that happening in a criminal court, or even a civil court, now appear increasingly remote. 
 
 Lawyers for the maid, Nafissatou Diallo, say she has been called to meet with prosecutors on Monday afternoon, and expect she will be told that some or all of the criminal charges against Strauss-Kahn will be dropped at a court hearing on Tuesday morning. 
 
 “I think it’s apparent they will be dismissing the case,” says Douglas Wigdor, who represents Diallo along with his partner Kenneth Thompson. Assistant District Attorney John (Artie) McConnell sent a letter on Friday saying he wanted to talk to Diallo “for the purpose of explaining to her what I anticipate will occur in court the following day.” “I guess you could come up with other theories,” Wigdor told me this morning. “But it basically sounds like they don’t want to be accused of dismissing the case and not explaining to the victim why they decided to do that.” The prosecutors themselves were not available for comment. 
 
 The Strauss-Kahn affair has had a huge international impact, literally changing the course of history. Because of the allegations against him by Diallo, who is an illiterate 32-year-old African immigrant single mother, Strauss-Kahn resigned from his powerful position as managing director of the International Monetary Fund. He had been touted as the leading contender to become president of France in next year’s elections. Those ambitions now appear to be over. 
 
 The maid’s story initially was so compelling that police and prosecutors felt they had probable cause to detain Strauss-Kahn even after he boarded a flight for Paris on May 14. He was treated as a “perp,” paraded in front of the press, then sent off to Riker’s Island jail before finally being released on $1 million bail to endure what amounted to a gilded house arrest in a rented Tribeca townhouse. That the married Strauss-Kahn also had a long history as a very aggressive “seducer” also came to light, leading New York tabloids to label him “Le Perv.” 
 
 But the subsequent discovery of Diallo’s history lying under oath on her petition for asylum and other official papers undermined her credibility. Living on the edge of American society, she associated with some unsavory characters, including one arrested in Arizona on drug charges who was recorded calling her from a detention center there and encouraging her after the fact to try to make money off the incident with Strauss-Kahn. The man in Arizona, Amara Tarawally, had also reportedly used Diallo’s bank account to move tens of thousands of dollars around the country. 
 
 On July 1, doubts about Diallo’s reliability as a witness led prosecutors to agree that Strauss-Kahn should be released on his own recognizance, although he still had to remain in the United States. Diallo’s lawyers, both of them former prosecutors, immediately started a campaign to try to force Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr. to go ahead with the criminal case against Strauss-Kahn. Thompson claimed Vance, who had just lost a couple of other high-profile cases, was now trying to back out of this one. In the weeks that followed, Thompson and Wigdor mounted an unprecedented campaign to sway public opinion, even making Diallo available for interviews with Newsweek and ABC News. 
 
 As one of the reporters who participated in those interviews, I found Diallo largely convincing. Although she is younger, taller and almost certainly fitter than the 62-year-old Strauss-Kahn, she said she was terrified that she might lose her job when this man staying in a $3,000 per night suite started forcing himself on her. Although the civil suit filed against DSK emphasizes physical coercion, it was the perceived threat to her livelihood as a single mother that came through most strongly in her interview with Newsweek. 
 
 Diallo’s account was also backed up by DNA evidence, and by the consistency with which she told her story. Discrepancies in her memory of what she did immediately after the incident—which rooms she went into and for how long—have been cleared up by hotel records, and support her initial account. No evidence or allegations have been brought forth to suggest she had any premeditated plan to accuse Strauss-Kahn of attacking her. 
 
 The line floated by DSK’s defenders, which suggests she consented to have oral sex with him, then created this whole scandal because he didn’t give her any money, is hard to square with the enormous consequences for her own life brought on by her accusations. Her future employment and ability to support her 15-year-old daughter is uncertain, as is her immigration status, and the civil case against DSK is at best a gamble. Nothing about her background or story has been produced to suggest why she would take that risk. 
 
 There is no doubt that the civil suit Diallo’s lawyers brought against Strauss-Kahn earlier this month will continue. Thompson and Wigdor are aggressive, persistent advocates. They deny that they have ever discussed any monetary settlement with DSK’s lawyers, and vehemently denounce as a lie allegations by unnamed sources to the effect that Thompson suggested in June that he could make the criminal case against Strauss-Kahn go away. Wigdor is on his way to France right now, where private detectives have gathered more information about women who allege that Strauss-Kahn assaulted them or harassed them. When the court decision is announced on Tuesday, Wigdor will give several interviews to French media to keep up the pressure. 
 
 But if the criminal charges are indeed dismissed, there is “definitely not” any way that Diallo or her attorneys can compel Strauss-Kahn to stay in the United States, says Wigdor. And the civil case is not expected to come to trial for two years in the best of circumstances. 
 
 By then, Strauss-Kahn could be on his way to rebuilding the political career that was shattered by his arrest, and he may have regained public sympathy in France, where his friends and defenders have excoriated the American legal system. So DSK could decline to answer the civil complaint by Diallo, which would risk a default judgment against him, but leave her attorneys to try to collect the money from him in France. Or, DSK could settle the case out of court for an undisclosed amount of money paid to Diallo. His attorneys say they have ruled out such an option, but many high-profile sexual assault cases—Michael Jackson’s alleged child molestation and Kobe Bryant’s alleged rape of a hotel employee come to mind—ended precisely like that, with hefty settlements. 
 
 However you cut it, DSK’s appearance before a jury in a Bronx County courtroom sometime in 2013 is probably the least likely scenario, even if the trial in the court of public opinion goes on and on. ||||| The hotel maid who accused former International Monetary Fund director Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexual assault feels "abandoned" by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, her attorney said Sunday. 
 
 FILE- In this Wednesday, July 27, 2011, file photo, hotel maid Nafissatou Diallo arrives at Manhattan criminal court for a meeting with New York City prosecutors investigating the sex assault case against... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE- In this July 6, 2011 photo, Former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn leaves his rented house in New York. The lawyer for the woman who accused Strauss-Kahn of sexual assault said Saturday, Aug. 20,... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - In this May 19, 2011 file photo, former International Monetary Fund leader Dominique Strauss-Kahn listens to proceedings in his case in New York state Supreme Court, in New York. Prosecutors are... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - In this July 28, 2011 file photo, Nafissatou Diallo, who accused former IMF Head Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexually attacking her, speaks during a news conference at the Christian Cultural Center... (Associated Press) 
 
 In an interview with France's RTL radio that comes a day after he told The New York Times he feared Vance would dismiss the charges against Strauss-Kahn, lawyer Kenneth Thompson said his client, Nassifatou Diallo "is hurt, she is depressed. 
 
 "Ms. Diallo feels abandoned by the Manhattan district attorney," Thompson said, adding that questions about Diallo's credibility as a witness have made her feel "that she's being investigated more than Strauss-Kahn." 
 
 Diallo and her 15-year-old daughter "cry themselves to sleep because their lives are in shambles because of what happened," he said. 
 
 On Saturday, Thompson said he got a letter from an assistant district attorney offering to meet with his client Monday, the day before Strauss-Kahn's next scheduled court appearance _ a move he interpreted meaning that prosecutors plan to drop some or all of the charges. 
 
 In a separate interview that appeared Sunday in France's Le Journal du Dimanche newspaper, another of Diallo's attorneys, Douglas Wigdor, said "We don't have confidence in (Vance's) desire to take this to court. 
 
 "I wonder about his motivations," Wigdor is quoted as saying. "If I were the district attorney, I wouldn't hesitate for a second. I know that most of the district attorneys in New York and in the country wouldn't either." 
 
 Wigdor also said that the defense team's search in Europe for other women who allege they'd been victimized by Strauss-Kahn had turned up "many" people. 
 
 "They'll talk at the right moment," he said. "Some of them are willing to testify." 
 
 Strauss-Kahn was arrested during a May visit to New York City after a housekeeper at a Manhattan hotel told police he attacked her when she arrived to clean his suite. The woman, Diallo, told police that he forced her to perform oral sex and then left the hotel. 
 
 The arrest prompted Strauss-Kahn to resign from the IMF, and disrupted his political career in France, where he was seen as a probable candidate for president. 
 
 But in July, prosecutors said publicly that Diallo had lied to them about her personal history and some critical details of the case. She also acknowledged lying to U.S. immigration officials about her life in Guinea, her native country, when she applied for political asylum in 2003. In addition, a law enforcement official said prosecutors discovered that, a day after the alleged attack, Diallo had called a friend to talk about the incident, and that during that call she had mentioned Strauss-Kahn's wealth. 
 
 Asked whether inconsistencies in Diallo's accounts of her earlier life and in her asylum application had compromised her credibility as a witness, Wigdor replied, "most victims have complicated pasts. If the new standard in American justice is to defend only those with a spotless past, they should come out and say it." 
 
 Diallo (whose name is pronounced na-fee-SAH'-too dee-AH'-loh) has also pressed her claims in another forum by suing Strauss-Kahn for unspecified damages in the civil case. 
 
 Wigdor warned that the civil case would continue, regardless of Vance's decision. 
 
 "If the charges are dropped, Mr. Strauss-Kahn still won't have heard the end of the Diallo case," Wigdor is quoted as saying. 
 
 The AP generally doesn't name people who report being sexually assaulted unless they agree to be identified, as Diallo has done.
– Prosecutors will ask a judge to drop all criminal charges against Dominique Strauss-Kahn in a court hearing on Tuesday, which could allow him to go free immediately, a source tells the New York Post. The Manhattan DA will seek dismissal because Nafissatou Diallo, the maid accusing Strauss-Kahn of rape, faces credibility problems and cannot convince a jury of his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The move for dismissal would likely be approved on the spot. "When it's the DA asking for dismissal, it's never denied," says one veteran defense lawyer. Lawyers for Diallo expect prosecutors to tell her tomorrow that some or all charges against Strauss-Kahn are being dropped, the Daily Beast reports. Diallo, described as "depressed" by her lawyer and feeling "abandoned by the Manhattan district attorney," will still pursue her civil suit against Strauss-Kahn, the AP adds.