NEW YORK, July 11 (Reuters) - The question has floated tantalizingly in the background for nearly two months, ever since New York City police arrested Dominique Strauss-Kahn on charges of sexually assaulting a hotel maid: Would his accuser pursue her own civil suit against him?

The answer took on renewed relevance after serious doubts about the woman's credibility pushed the criminal case against the former International Monetary Fund director to the edge of collapse earlier this month.

Civil litigators say the accuser, whose account of what happened has remained steadfast, would still have viable civil claims against Strauss-Kahn even if the criminal charges against him are dismissed. But any judgment against him would prove difficult to enforce if the prosecution ends and he returns home to Paris.

"A civil case could certainly still succeed on the merits," said Meg Garvin, the executive director of the National Crime Victim Law Institute at Lewis & Clark University Law School in Oregon.

There is no shortage of examples where civil lawsuits proceeded after criminal prosecutions of the same incidents failed. O.J. Simpson, the former football player charged with killing his ex-wife and her friend, was acquitted in 1995 but was later found liable in a wrongful-death civil suit brought by the victims' families and ordered to pay more than $30 million in damages.

In 2004, prosecutors dropped rape charges against Kobe Bryant, the basketball star, when his accuser refused to testify, but she filed a lawsuit against him and eventually settled the case out of court for an unspecified amount of money.

The lawyers for Strauss-Kahn's accuser have said they are not considering a lawsuit at this time and did not respond to requests for comment last week.

BURDEN OF PROOF

One of the most significant differences between criminal and civil trials is the burden of proof required to prevail. In a criminal case, where a guilty verdict can result in imprisonment, prosecutors must prove the defendant's guilt beyond reasonable doubt, the law's strictest standard.

In civil cases, by contrast, where the loser is liable for money damages, the plaintiff can prevail by showing that the alleged acts occurred by a "preponderance of the evidence" -- essentially, that it was more likely than not that the defendant was responsible.

This distinction can be particularly appealing to a witness who, like Strauss-Kahn's accuser, has credibility problems.

"There's nothing from what I've heard about the alleged problems with the case that would make me immediately shy away," said John Clune, the lawyer who represented the accuser in the Bryant case.

Unlike in a criminal case, where a jury may not draw any conclusions from a defendant's decision not to testify, civil defendants typically must give their side during depositions and at trial. There is no Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination, and if a defendant refuses to answer, the jury is permitted to make inferences from that refusal.

In Strauss-Kahn's case, a civil suit could shift the focus from the accuser's credibility to his own record of honesty, given the allegations about his past infidelities.

Like many civil defendants faced with that option, Strauss-Kahn might agree to settle out of court rather than expose himself to the scrutiny of a trial and the burden of testifying about what happened in the hotel room, not to mention in past incidents with other women.

"This is exactly why civil defendants settle all the time," said Julie Suk, a professor at Benjamin Cardozo School of Law. "They may not think there's a winnable case against them, but it's often much more costly, both in terms of lawyer fees and personal, psychic cost."

But given Strauss-Kahn's wealth, his accuser still risks being perceived as having purely financial motives in going after him, a possibility that only increased after news outlets reported she had called an incarcerated friend shortly after the alleged assault and mentioned Strauss-Kahn's money.

RETURN TO FRANCE

A larger concern for the woman is if the criminal charges are dropped and Strauss-Kahn heads home to France.

In that case, international law experts say, a civil lawsuit could still go ahead -- but collecting damages from him in France might prove difficult.

While the U.S. and France do not have an extradition treaty, which would prevent Strauss-Kahn from being forcibly returned here for a criminal trial, the two countries have treaties that would probably ensure that Strauss-Kahn could be served with a civil complaint and a subpoena to testify, analysts said.

And if Strauss-Kahn chose not to appear? A New York court could enter a default judgment against him -- in other words, his accuser would win simply because he didn't show up. But experts said that collecting damages from Strauss-Kahn would likely require the cooperation of a French court.

Paul Cohen, an attorney who specializes in international law for Thompson & Knight in New York, called the chances of extracting money from Strauss-Kahn if he is back in France "extraordinarily low."

"It has nothing at all to do with the merits -- it's all to do with the geography and the jurisdictional issues that come with it," he said. "The French courts may not appreciate a civil complaint like this that is in effect a proxy for criminal prosecution."

(Reporting by Joseph Ax)

(An earlier version of this story did not identify Julie Suk's affiliation. She is a professor at Benjamin Cardozo School of Law.)