MOSCOW, December 19 - RAPSI. A French court Wednesday denied Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s request to drop charges of aggravated pimping currently pending against him in the latest sex scandal to tarnish the disgraced former International Monetary Fund chief’s once respectable reputation, according to a report by local news agency France24.

According to the report, Strauss-Kahn’s lawyers acknowledged their client’s attendance at some of the “libertine” parties under investigation, but that he was unaware of any of the women in attendance having been paid for their presence.

According to earlier reports by France24, in February of this year Strauss-Kahn was implicated in a prostitution scandal. In the northern French city of Lille, business leaders and police officials are believed to have orchestrated a prostitution ring, providing girls for sex parties. Strauss-Kahn was brought in for questioning on  suspicion of “aggravated pimping in an organised gang.”

Strauss-Kahn only found closure to another recent set of sexual offense allegations on December 11, when he reached an undisclosed settlement with a New York City hotel maid who accused him of attempting to rape her last year.The Bronx judge presiding over the case announced that details of the settlement, including the amount of any damages to be paid by Strauss-Kahn to his accuser, would not be made public.

The maid, 33-year-old Nafissatou Diallo said Strauss-Kahn forced her to perform oral sex and tried to rape her after she arrived to clean his hotel room at the Sofitel Hotel in Manhattan in May 2011. He said the encounter was consensual.

Strauss-Kahn, 63, was arrested and charged with attempted rape and other crimes, but the charges against him were dropped after New York City prosecutors said Diallo had credibility problems. He was forced to resign as head of the IMF and abandon his plans to run for president in his native France.