Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. will ask a judge to dismiss sexual-assault charges against Dominique Strauss-Kahn because they’d be difficult to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, former prosecutors predict.

Strauss-Kahn, who resigned as chief of the International Monetary Fund after being arrested and charged with sexual assault and attempted rape in an alleged May 14 attack on a housekeeper in his Manhattan hotel suite, will be back in state court Aug. 23 for a status hearing on his case.

Strauss-Kahn, 62, a onetime French presidential hopeful, was released from home confinement on July 1 after prosecutors told the judge in charge of the case that “substantial credibility issues,” caused by the housekeeper’s lies, had hurt their case. His $1 million bail and $5 million bond were returned and his house arrest was ended.

Prosecutors were told in June by Strauss-Kahn’s accuser, Nafissatou Diallo, 32, that she had lied about a gang rape in Guinea before she sought political asylum in the U.S., and she changed her story about what she did right after the alleged attack. Before that, police said, Diallo, 32, a political refugee from Guinea, had given a credible account of the incident, and they found forensic evidence supporting her allegation.

Credibility Paramount

“At the end of the day, what happened in that hotel room - - specifically, whether a crime was committed -- comes down to what she says and, therefore, her credibility is paramount,” said Thomas Curran, a former Manhattan Assistant District Attorney who is now at Peckar & Abramson in New York. “If that credibility is called into question in a fundamental way, the DA may find that they simply can’t prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt.”

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