Ex-IMF Chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn Moves In To New Digs In Lower Manhattan
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- Residents of a luxury building in New York City say they wouldn't know former IMF president Dominique Strauss-Kahn is under house arrest there if it weren't for the media frenzy outside.
Strauss-Kahn was officially released from Rikers Island Friday, bailed on $1 million cash plus a $5 million bond, trading his prison cell for house arrest.
He is accused of sexually assaulting a housekeeper at the Sofitel Hotel in Manhattan last weekend.
No doubt the political power player was eager to get out of Rikers, but his new home at 71 Broadway is nowhere near the accommodations he's used to.
The ex-IMF chief was supposed to be staying at a luxurious apartment rented by wife, Anne Sinclair, at Bristol Plaza.
But shortly before his scheduled release, the Plaza turned away Sinclair once it was discovered Strauss-Kahn would be staying there.
"The reason that he had to move [from the Bristol] was because members of the press attempted to invade his private residence," explained Strauss-Kahn's attorney William Taylor.
Strauss-Kahn is now under a 24-hour watch at the Empire Building in lower Manhattan. Members of the media have been camped out outside the building since his release Friday night.
Neighbor Donna Mancino said Saturday that she saw security guards posted at a ninth-floor door leading to the stairwell.
Strauss-Kahn is also being guarded by a company at a cost of about $200,000 a month and must wear an electronic monitoring device and can only leave the apartment for a medical emergency.
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