BANKERGATE – AT 7:49 A.M. ET:  Is this legit, or has someone learned the meaning of the term "cash settlement"?  From the New York Daily News:

An Egyptian businessman has followed in the footsteps of pervy Frenchman Dominique Strauss-Kahn - sexually abusing a maid in a swanky Manhattan hotel, police said Monday night.

Mahmoud Abdel-Salam Omar, 74, former head of the Bank of Alexandria and now chairman of a leading Middle Eastern salt company, is accused of locking the 44-year-old hotel employee inside his $900-a-night room at The Pierre on E. 61st St. off Fifth Ave.

He had called for room service requesting tissues and answered the door in his pajamas, police sources said. When the maid, whom he had not specifically requested, arrived at his 10th-floor room, he asked her to put the box of tissues on a table, sources said. As she moved toward the table, he locked the door.

"He locked her in the room and had her trapped," a police source said.

And you know what allegedly happened next.

Omar then asked the maid for her phone number, a police source said. After she gave him a made-up number he let go, and she fled the room.

This is apparently what passes for suave in Egypt:  First, you abuse the maid, then you ask for her phone number.

The incident happened about 6 p.m. on Sunday but was not reported to police until Monday morning.

"Experienced NYPD detectives found the complainant to be credible," said Paul Browne, the NYPD's top spokesman.

If our guys say it's credible, it probably is.

The alleged perp should have told them that this is all part of the Arab Spring.

May 31, 2011