By Joseph Ax and Noeleen Walder
NEW YORK, Dec 4 (Reuters) - Lawyers for former International
Monetary Fund head Dominique Strauss-Kahn and the hotel maid who
accused him of sexual assault were ordered on Tuesday to appear
in New York state court next week to brief a judge on the status
of settlement talks in the maid's civil case against him.
The setting of the court date comes just days after a source
familiar with the matter said the two sides had reached a
preliminary agreement to settle the case.
In a two-paragraph order issued Tuesday, Justice Douglas
McKeon, the Bronx County Supreme Court judge overseeing the
case, also ordered the maid, Nafissatou Diallo, to appear "if
the action is settled" to approve the terms in open court.
The order did not mention Strauss-Kahn and it is unclear
whether he would travel to New York for the hearing.
Strauss-Kahn's lawyers in the United States and France have
acknowledged that a deal was under discussion but said last week
that no settlement had been reached. They denied a report that
the 63-year-old had agreed to pay Diallo $6 million to end the
lawsuit.
The scheduling of the status conference, however, may signal
that a final deal has been reached.
A source familiar with the case said the amount of any
settlement would likely be the subject of a confidentiality
agreement.
Lawyers for Strauss-Kahn in Paris declined to comment. An
attorney for Diallo also declined to comment.
Diallo accused Strauss-Kahn of attacking her in his luxury
hotel room in Manhattan on May 14, 2011. The allegations led to
Strauss-Kahn's arrest, forced his resignation from the IMF and
destroyed his status as a frontrunner for the French presidency.
The criminal charges were dropped in August 2011 after New
York prosecutors developed doubts about Diallo's credibility.
Diallo filed the civil lawsuit against Strauss-Kahn a few weeks
before the case was dismissed.
Strauss-Kahn, who has said that the encounter with Diallo
was a "moral error" but was entirely consensual, filed a
countersuit against her, claiming defamation.
Even as the U.S. case appears close to an end, Strauss-Kahn
is awaiting a decision by a French court on Dec. 19 on whether
to call off an investigation involving parties in Lille attended
by prostitutes, where he risks trial on a charge of "aggravated
pimping."
In recent months, Strauss-Kahn has been making an
under-the-radar comeback with a handful of speaking engagements
at private conferences and by setting up a business consultancy
firm in Paris.
If the Lille case is dropped and Diallo ends her civil
lawsuit, Strauss-Kahn would be freer to pursue his consultancy
work and could even consider a return to public life in France,
where he has been shunned since the Diallo scandal.
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