PARIS -- The lawyer for the New York hotel maid who accused Dominique Strauss-Kahn of trying to rape her has appealed on French television for other women with claims against the former IMF chief to come forward.
"If there are any other women in France or in Africa who may have been abused by Dominique Strauss-Kahn, please, call me, contact me, we want to help you, we want to talk to you," lawyer Kenneth Thompson, who is representing the 32-year-old chambermaid, told i
He made a similar appeal on Tuesday evening on France 2 television.
Strauss-Kahn, who was formerly seen as a frontrunner to win France's 2012 presidential election, pleaded not guilty on Monday to charges he sexually assaulted the chambermaid at a hotel in Manhattan where he was staying in May.
His lawyers say they have evidence to prove that sexual contact with the maid was consensual, a claim Thompson has dismissed as "preposterous".
A lawyer for Frenchwoman Tristane Banon, a writer, said after Strauss-Kahn's arrest on May 14 that his client was considering filing a complaint against the Frenchman, a former finance minister, over an alleged sexual assault in 2002.
Banon's lawyer has said she does not wish to testify in the United States in a case other than her own.
The case has unleashed a debate in France over a code of secrecy in the media that hushes up the sex lives of politicians to the point of keeping quiet about harassment of women.
Strauss-Kahn faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted.
© 2013 Thomson/Reuters. All rights reserved.