NEW YORK - A hotel maid who accuses ex-International Monetary Fund boss Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexual assault sued him on Monday over what she calls a "violent and sadistic" attack in an upscale suite that left her life "in shambles".

Nafissatou Diallo, the Manhattan maid who has accused Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexually assaulting her, speaks during a media conference at the Christian Cultural Center in the Brooklyn borough of New York in this July 28, 2011 file photo. [Photo/Agencies]

Lawyers for the maid, Guinean immigrant Nafissatou Diallo, wrote in the lawsuit that Strauss-Kahn "intentionally, brutally and violently sexually assaulted Ms Diallo and in the process humiliated, degraded, violated and robbed Ms Diallo of her dignity as a woman".

The lawyers, Kenneth Thompson and Douglas Wigdor, promised to tell a jury about other instances when Strauss-Kahn sexually attacked women in hotel rooms and apartments, coerced employees into complying with sexual demands or accosted women with inappropriate sexual remarks and tried to get them to perform sexual acts.

They said the lawsuit, seeking unspecified damages, would "redress the violent and sadistic attack by defendant Strauss-Kahn on Nafissatou Diallo when he sexually assaulted" her on May 14 at the Sofitel hotel in midtown Manhattan.

The lawsuit says Strauss-Kahn injured Diallo's shoulder, bruised her vagina, tore her pantyhose and violently grabbed the back of her head during the attack.

The lawsuit, filed in state court in the Bronx, accuses Strauss-Kahn of acting like a common criminal afterward, fleeing the hotel so quickly that he left behind traces of his semen, along with bloody tissues.

"In his haste to flee the scene of a crime, he rushed out of the hotel with toothpaste smeared on the outside of his mouth and was looking over his shoulders," the lawsuit says.

The attack has left Diallo physically and psychologically harmed, with permanent damage done to her professional and personal reputations along with severe mental anguish from which she may never fully recover, the lawsuit says. She suffers great emotional distress, humiliation, depression and physical pain, and the experience has "left Ms Diallo's life and her young daughter's life in shambles", it says.

Lawyers for Strauss-Kahn said the maid's lawsuit has no merit and their client will fight it vigorously.

"We have maintained from the beginning that the motivation of Mr Thompson and his client was to make money," attorneys William W. Taylor and Benjamin Brafman said. "The filing of this lawsuit ends any doubt on that question."

The filing of a lawsuit so quickly after an arrest provides an avenue for lawyers to pursue evidence and interview witnesses for a potential civil trial while memories are fresh.

Associated Press