Former IMF boss's wife 'mortgages mansion to raise bail bond'

The 62-year-old French politician's bail was set at US dollars one million in cash and a US dollars five million insurance bond, which his wife, heiress and French television presenter Anne Sinclair, raised by mortgaging her mansion in Washington DC, the 'Daily Mail' online reported.

If her husband absconds, she will forfeit the money and the house in the exclusive Georgetown district, which she bought in 2007 for US dollars four million, the report said.

Strauss-Kahn, charged with sexually assaulting a 32 -year-old African-origin chambermaid at a Times Square hotel eight days back, was bundled out of a Paris-bound flight and arrested by the New York police.

After being let out of the notorious Rikers Island prison on Friday, where he was being held, the former managing director of International Monetary Fund spent in a US dollars 4,300-a-month apartment.

His wife is also understood to be paying the rent for his "golden cage" on the fourth floor of an exclusive block of flats near the site of the former World Trade Center, the report said.

Sinclair is also said to be paying 150,000 pounds for armed guards, who have been posted outside the apartment, to ensure the French politician does not try to flee to France.

Meanwhile, his alleged victim has reportedly gone into hiding after Strauss-Kahn's legal team allegedly approved a campaign to prove he was trapped into "consensual" sex with her in a conspiracy designed to derail his campaign to unseat French President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2012 elections.