Timeline: France's Strauss-Kahn faces new sex probe

REUTERS - Here is a timeline on Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former International Monetary Fund chief, since he was arrested in New York on May 2011.

May 2011 - A hotel maid tells New York police that Strauss-Kahn sexually assaulted her in his suite on May 14. He has lunch with his daughter before driving to the airport to catch an Air France flight to Paris. Police board the flight minutes before departure and detain him.

- The next day Strauss-Kahn, 62, is arrested and charged with a criminal sexual act, attempted rape and unlawful imprisonment.

- Strauss-Kahn is denied bail on May 16, transferred to Rikers Island jail and held in protective custody.

- Lawyer for Strauss-Kahn says that he believes forensic evidence in the case is "not consistent with forcible encounter". Strauss-Kahn later calls his sexual relations with the hotel maid "consensual but stupid".

- Strauss-Kahn resigns as head of the IMF on May 18.

- A grand jury indicts Strauss-Kahn on May 19. The next day a judge grants his release on bail and places him under house arrest. He stays in a Manhattan apartment under round-the-clock armed guard. The private security company charges $200,000 a month, which he is responsible for paying.

July 2011 - Journalist Tristane Banon files a complaint in France alleging Strauss-Kahn tried to force himself on her during a 2003 interview in Paris. Prosecutors later drop the case due to lack of evidence.

August 2011 - The hotel maid, Nafissatou Diallo, files a civil suit against Strauss-Kahn in the Bronx, where she lives.

- A New York State Supreme Court judge dismisses the charges against Strauss-Kahn on August 23, after prosecutors lost faith in the credibility of his accuser.

September 2011 - Strauss-Kahn, in his first interview in France, apologises to his country for a sexual encounter that he says was a "moral error" he will regret all his life. He vows to stay out of the 2012 presidential election campaign.

November 2011 - Lawyers for Strauss-Kahn defend his right to claim diplomatic immunity in Diallo's civil suit.

- Two French construction firm executives are dismissed over their alleged role in a prostitution ring that has been linked to Strauss-Kahn, the company's CEO says.

- The affair started with the discovery in 2011 of a network that supplied prostitutes to clients of the luxury Carlton hotel in the northern city of Lille. Eight people have been arrested.

December 2011 - An opinion poll indicates that Anne Sinclair, Strauss Kahn's wife, is France's most popular woman, ahead of new IMF chief Christine Lagarde and first lady Carla Bruni.

February 2012 - Strauss-Kahn is questioned by police over the alleged prostitution ring.

(Reporting by David Cutler, London Editorial Reference Unit; Editing by Alessandra Rizzo)