(Bloomberg News) International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, accused of attempting to rape a hotel housekeeper, was ordered held without bail by a New York judge after prosecutors said he presented a flight risk.

Strauss-Kahn appeared in Manhattan criminal court today, two days after he was taken into custody aboard an Air France flight as it prepared to depart from John F. Kennedy International Airport. Prosecutors asked Judge Melissa Jackson that he be kept in custody until trial. Strauss-Kahn faces as long as 25 years in prison if convicted of the most serious charges, prosecutors said.

A potential candidate for the French presidency, Strauss- Kahn, 62, has denied the charges and will plead not guilty, his lawyer Benjamin Brafman has said. He didn't enter a plea today. His next court appearance was set for May 20.

"He has almost no incentive to stay in this country," Assistant District Attorney Artie McConnell told Jackson at the hearing in a packed courtroom in lower Manhattan. "He has an extensive network of contacts throughout the world." France "does not extradite its nationals," he said.

The judge agreed to hold Strauss-Kahn without bail, agreeing he is a flight risk.

Criminal Sexual Act

The IMF chief is charged with criminal sexual act, attempted rape, sexual abuse, unlawful imprisonment, sexual abuse and forcible touching, according to court papers.

Stephen Morello, a spokesman for the New York City Department of Correction, said Strauss-Kahn may be taken today to the city's main jail complex on Rikers Island, off the shore of northern Queens opposite LaGuardia Airport.

The jail has one-person cells and Strauss-Kahn, because of his prominence, may require an escort when out of his cell, Morello said. He will stay at the courthouse lockup "until we decide to move him somewhere else," Morello said.

Brafman asked the judge to let his client stay with his daughter, who lives in New York, while awaiting trial. Brafman said Strauss-Kahn's wife, television journalist Anne Sinclair, was flying to New York today.

McConnell told the judge he had watched a video of Strauss-Kahn leaving the hotel where the alleged attack took place.

'In A Hurry'

"He appears to be a man in a hurry," McConnell said.

Brafman said Strauss-Kahn was rushing to a lunch appointment. Also, the Air France flight had been booked in advance and Strauss-Kahn was on his way to see German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Brafman said.

After the hearing, Brafman told the reporters at the courthouse that he would review the bail decision.

The alleged attack on a 32-year-old woman at a Sofitel hotel in midtown Manhattan occurred May 14, according to the New York Police Department. The maid picked Strauss-Kahn out of a lineup, police said.

According to the criminal complaint, Strauss-Kahn "engaged in oral sexual conduct and anal sexual conduct with another person by forcible compulsion." He allegedly closed the door of the room to keep the woman from leaving, grabbed her breasts and tried to pull down her pantyhose, according to court papers.

"The victim provided a very powerful and detailed account," McConnell told the judge. He said results aren't back yet from the crime-scene unit's processing of the hotel room.

No Seats

Every seat in the courtroom was full as the judge dealt with public-urination and drug-possession cases. When Strauss- Kahn's case was called, more reporters, along with photographers, were allowed to stand in the back of the room.

The arraignment had been scheduled for yesterday and was delayed after investigators sought a warrant for a physical examination. Strauss-Kahn gave police permission to examine him for physical evidence of scratches and DNA from his accuser, according to Brafman.

The IMF "remains fully functioning and operational" following Strauss-Kahn's arrest, the Washington-based organization said in a statement yesterday. John Lipsky, the IMF's first deputy managing director, is serving as acting managing director, IMF spokesman William Murray said. Murray said Strauss-Kahn's trip to New York was private and that his hotel room was not paid for by the IMF.

President Barack Obama's spokesman, Jay Carney, said the administration would have no comment on the legal case.

'Fully Functional'

"The IMF remains fully functional, and we remain confident in the institution," Carney told reporters on Air Force One as the president traveled to a speech in Memphis, Tennessee.

Strauss-Kahn had been scheduled to attend a meeting of euro-area finance ministers in Brussels today. The ministers endorsed a 78 billion-euro ($110.8 billion) bailout for Portugal as they stepped up pressure on Greece to do more to win improved aid terms.

The IMF said today that its board will meet to consider the latest developments concerning Strauss-Kahn.

"For the fund, this is terrible news at a time when its leadership needs to portray stability, wisdom and confidence," Bessma Momani, a professor in at the University of Waterloo in Canada specializing in the IMF and its policies, said in an e- mail.

The alleged assault occurred on May 14 when the woman entered Strauss-Kahn's $3,000-a-night suite, where he had been staying since the day before, New York police said. Strauss-Kahn is alleged to have emerged from a bathroom naked and attempted to forcibly have sex with the maid, New York Police Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne said. The complaint says the alleged assault occurred around noon.

First Class

The maid escaped and notified co-workers who called the police, Browne said. When officers arrived, Strauss-Kahn wasn't there and his mobile phone was left behind, he said. He was later detained by Port Authority police while sitting in first- class aboard the Air France flight. He was held in a cell in an East Harlem precinct house, where the NYPD's Special Victims Unit is located. The unit handles sex-crime cases.

A former Manhattan assistant district attorney, Brafman has represented singer Michael Jackson, rapper Sean "Diddy" Combs and Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano of New York's Gambino crime family.

New York police said Strauss-Kahn doesn't have diplomatic immunity. The French Foreign Ministry in Paris said French consul visited Strauss-Kahn in detention.

No Extradition

French law doesn't allow extradition of its citizens to the U.S., according to Stephane Bonifassi, a white-collar crime lawyer in Paris. Were Strauss-Kahn to flee, France could offer to take up the prosecution, he said.

French lawyers for Strauss-Kahn, Jean Veil and Leon Lef Forster, didn't return calls to their offices and mobile phones.

Strauss-Kahn, a former French finance minister and member of France's opposition Socialist Party, has consistently been among the most popular possible candidates to contest France's 2012 presidential election, according to opinion polls.

Manuel Valls, a Socialist Party executive, told RTL radio today that Strauss-Kahn told him two weeks ago, during a personal trip to Paris, that he was "getting ready" to run in the party primaries and potentially the presidential election. Valls said Strauss-Kahn's decision to run was made, even though he hadn't declared his intentions.

With his IMF term expiring next year, Strauss-Kahn has, in the past several months, declined to say whether he was planning to run for office. The vote will be held in April and May 2012.

Sarkozy Poll

President Nicolas Sarkozy would have trailed Strauss-Kahn by 5 percentage points in the first round of presidential voting if the election had been held at the end of last month, a CSA poll for 20 Minutes newspaper, BFM Television and RMC radio showed April 28.

Any prospect of getting elected has now vanished, said Laurent Dubois of the Paris Political Studies Institute.

"It's a tsunami," Dubois said in a phone interview. "There is no way he can recover from this and run."

This is the second time since taking over the IMF that Strauss-Kahn has faced allegations of misconduct.

In 2008, he had a relationship with Piroska Nagy, a female economist at the IMF, who quit in August of that year. An investigation by the IMF board, released in October 2008, concluded that, while he had made a "serious error of judgment," he shouldn't be fired.

Strauss-Kahn apologized to his staff and family, which includes his third wife, Sinclair, and four children from his previous marriages.

'Open, Transparent'

Sinclair yesterday said she doesn't "for a second" believe the accusations against her husband, Agence France- Presse reported, citing a statement from her.

Strauss-Kahn took the helm of the IMF in November 2007, following his loss in the primaries of the French Socialist Party ahead of the 2007 presidential elections.

Strauss-Kahn, who succeeded Spain's Rodrigo Rato, has helped reshape the agency's mission and restore its relevance. When he arrived, its emergency lending dropped to $58.7 million in 2006 from $66.4 billion in 2002. Among his first moves there was to cut about 400 jobs.

The global financial panic triggered by the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in September 2008 restored the Washington-based IMF's relevance as emergency loans soared to a record of $91.7 billion last year from $1.1 billion in 2007.

Group Of 20

Strauss-Kahn gained backing from the Group of 20 to triple the IMF's resources, and the group has over the past two years given the agency a host of new missions to help avoid another crisis. The IMF is helping the G-20 single out countries whose policies threaten global growth, and has also submitted proposals to fortify the international monetary system.

More recently, Strauss-Kahn played a key role in efforts to stem the European debt crisis which started last year in Greece, with a pledge to contribute about a third of future bailouts in the region by the European Union. The IMF has co-funded aid packages to Greece and Ireland. He had been scheduled to meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel yesterday.

Under Strauss-Kahn, the IMF also approved a plan that will make China the third-strongest voice in the 187-member organization, founded in 1945, while weakening Europe's influence to make room for emerging countries.

Strauss-Kahn has juggled careers as an economics professor, lawyer and Socialist politician. He holds a law degree and a doctorate in economics from the University of Paris.

Elected In 1986

In 1986, he was elected to France's National Assembly and served as industry minister from 1991 to 1993. He returned to office as finance minister under Premier Lionel Jospin in 1997. He cut France's budget deficit to less than 3 percent in 1999, the level required for euro membership.

In November 1999, he resigned as finance minister after magistrates began an investigation into financial irregularities at MNEF, a French student-insurance group. The probe covered an allegation that the company had paid him about $100,000 from 1994 to 1996 for legal work on a property deal which he never performed. Strauss-Kahn denied wrongdoing and was cleared by a Paris court in November 2001.