Former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn and a hotel maid who accused him of trying to rape her have reached an agreement to settle her lawsuit, likely ending a legal saga that forced the onetime French presidential contender's resignation and opened a floodgate of accusations against him, a person familiar with the case said Thursday. 
 
 Details of the deal, which comes after prosecutors dropped related criminal charges last year, weren't immediately known and likely will be veiled by a confidentiality agreement. That could prevent the two from speaking publicly about a May 2011 encounter that she called a brutally sudden attack and he termed a consensual "moral failing." 
 
 Lawyers for Strauss-Kahn and the housekeeper, Nafissatou Diallo, made the as-yet-unsigned agreement within recent days, with Bronx Supreme Court Justice Douglas McKeon facilitating that and a separate agreement to end another lawsuit Diallo filed against the New York Post, said the person, who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private agreement. A court date is expected next week, though the day wasn't set, the person said. 
 
 Strauss-Kahn lawyer William W. Taylor III declined to comment. Lawyers for the housekeeper didn't immediately respond to phone and email messages. 
 
 Diallo, 33, and Strauss-Kahn, 63, crossed paths when she arrived to clean his luxury Manhattan hotel suite. She told police he chased her down, tried to yank down her pantyhose and forced her to perform oral sex. 
 
 The allegation seemed to let loose a spiral of accusations about the sexual conduct of Strauss-Kahn, a married diplomat and economist who had long been dubbed the "great seducer." He now faces charges linking him to a suspected prostitution ring in his home country. 
 
 With DNA evidence showing a sexual encounter and Diallo providing a gripping description of an attack, the Manhattan district attorney's office initially said it had a strong and compelling case. But within six weeks, prosecutors' confidence began to ebb as they said Diallo had lied about her past _ including a false account of a previous rape _ and her actions after leaving Strauss-Kahn's room. 
 
 Diallo, who's from Guinea, said she told the truth about their encounter. But the district attorney's office dropped the charges in August 2011, saying prosecutors could no longer ask a jury to believe her. 
 
 Diallo had sued Strauss-Kahn in the meantime, with her lawyers saying she would get her day in a different court. Strauss-Kahn called the lawsuit defamatory and countersued her for $1 million. 
 
 Her lawsuit against the Post concerned a series of articles that called her a prostitute and said she sold sex at a hotel where the Manhattan DA's office had housed her during the criminal case. The News Corp. newspaper has said it stands by its reporting; a spokeswoman declined to comment Thursday. 
 
 In helping resolve the cases, McKeon averted what could have been an ugly court drama. 
 
 Strauss-Kahn initially said he had diplomatic immunity, an argument the judge turned down in May. Strauss-Kahn's lawyers had since asked McKeon to throw out part of her claim for other legal reasons. Court records show the judge had yet to rule on that and several other legal issues, and it appeared that a high-stakes step _ depositions, or pretrial questioning under oath _ had not yet been taken. Depositions can give both sides information and a better picture of how strong the key parties and other witnesses might be in court. 
 
 While the vast majority of civil cases end in settlements, some legal observers were surprised that the deal between Strauss-Kahn and Diallo came before the legal arguments were resolved. 
 
 "I really expected it to go a little farther," said Matthew Galluzzo, a criminal defense lawyer and civil litigator who has been following the Strauss-Kahn case closely. 
 
 Still, the case likely had taken a toll on both Diallo, a single mother of a teenage daughter, and Strauss-Kahn, who has found himself plagued by accusations of sexual misconduct that further tarnished his reputation. The Socialist had been seen as a potential leading candidate for the French presidency before his New York arrest. 
 
 In France, judges are to decide by Dec. 19 whether to annul charges linking him to a suspected prostitution ring run out of a luxury hotel in Lille. He acknowledges attending "libertine" gatherings but denies knowing that some women present were paid. 
 
 In August, a separate case against Strauss-Kahn, centered on allegations of rape in a Washington, D.C., hotel, was dropped after French prosecutors said the accuser, an escort, changed her account to say she wasn't raped. 
 
 Soon after Strauss-Kahn's arrest in New York last year, French writer Tristane Banon accused him of attempting to rape her during an interview in 2003, a claim he called imaginary and slanderous. Prosecutors said they believed the encounter qualified as a sexual assault, but the legal timeframe to pursue her complaint had elapsed. 
 
 Strauss-Kahn has separated from his wife, journalist and heiress Anne Sinclair, who stood by him through the allegations in New York. The two said they were filing a lawsuit this summer against a French magazine, citing invasion of privacy, for reporting they had split, but Sinclair later acknowledged it was true. 
 
 The New York Times first reported the agreement between Strauss-Kahn and Diallo. 
 
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 Associated Press Writer Colleen Long contributed to this report. 
 
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 Follow Jennifer Peltz at http://twitter.com/jennpeltz ||||| 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.
– 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.