NEW YORK, May 21 (IANS): Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn has been lodged in an apartment in Lower Manhattan, where a private security guard will monitor him round the clock, after his release from jail.
Strauss-Kahn, who is accused of attempting to rape a New York hotel chambermaid, will have to pay the $200,000-a-month bill for the guards at the apartment at 71 Broadway in the city's Financial District, CNN reported citing a source.
He was taken to his new home Friday after the Bristol Plaza, an Upper East Side luxury building he sought to inhabit after release on bail from the infamous Rikers Island, declined to accept him after neighbours complained about Strauss-Kahn's alleged crimes and the news media commotion on the sidewalk.
Under Supreme Court Judge Michael Obus's order Strauss-Kahn, 62, will not be able to leave his apartment, where he is to stay with his wife, Anne Sinclair, except for medical reasons. Once he is in a longer-term location, the former IMF chief must give six hours' notice before leaving.
The conditions of his release included $1 million cash bail and $5 million bond. The judge also ordered him to wear a monitoring bracelet on his ankle that would sound an alarm if he set foot outside.
Defence lawyer William Taylor alluded to Strauss-Kahn's reported failure to win approval to stay at the other apartment in pleading Friday with members of the news media to grant his client privacy.
"The reason that he had to move is because members of the press attempted to invade his private residence and interfere with his family's privacy," Taylor said.
Strauss-Kahn, who was in the fourth year of a five-year term with the IMF, was paid $441,980 in 2010, according to the most recent annual report. He also got $79,000 and first-class travel for him and his family while he was on company business.
On Friday, the IMF said that Strauss-Kahn will receive a $250,000 separation payment and a "modest annual pension" thereafter.
