Timeline: France's Strauss-Kahn still faces trial risk

(Reuters) - Here is a look at the legal troubles of former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn after a French court on Wednesday rejected his request to drop a sex offence inquiry in which he risks standing trial on pimping charges:

He has denied all charges.

May 14, 2011 - Strauss-Kahn is arrested at JFK International Airport on charges of sexually assaulting hotel maid Nafissatou Diallo at the luxury Sofitel hotel in Times Square. He is denied bail and transferred to Rikers Island jail. Four days later he resigns as head of the IMF.

May 19 - He is indicted by a grand jury before being released on bail and placed under house arrest.

July 2011 - Journalist Tristane Banon files a complaint in France alleging Strauss-Kahn tried to rape her during a 2003 interview in Paris. French prosecutors drop attempted rape charges in October due to lack of evidence but say there was evidence suggesting sexual assault, adding it is too late after the event for legal pursuit.

August 2011 - Hotel maid Diallo files a civil suit against Strauss-Kahn in the Bronx, where she lives. A New York State Supreme Court judge dismisses the criminal charges against Strauss-Kahn on August 23 after prosecutors lose faith in the credibility of his accuser.

September 2011 - Strauss-Kahn, in his first interview in France, apologizes to his country for what he refers to as a "moral error" that he will regret all his life. He vows to stay out of the 2012 presidential election campaign.

October 2011 - Strauss-Kahn's name surfaces in an investigation into a alleged prostitution network operating at the Carlton Hotel in the northern French town of Lille. The former IMF chief is cited as a possible client and asks to be questioned by police to put an end to what he calls "malicious insinuations".

February 2012 - Strauss-Kahn is taken in for questioning by police in the so-called Carlton affair. Although using a prostitute is not illegal in France, he faces possible charges of pimping. Strauss-Kahn admits to taking part in swingers' parties, but says he had no idea the women were prostitutes.

March 2012 - Strauss-Kahn is placed under formal investigation in the Carlton affair and required to post 100,000 euros ($133,300) in bail on March 26.

June 2012 - A source says wife Anne Sinclair, who relaunched her media career as a news editor at the Huffington Post's French edition, and Strauss-Kahn have separated and they are living in separate residences in Paris.

December 2012 - Strauss-Kahn and Diallo settle her civil lawsuit against him for an undisclosed sum, ending Strauss-Kahn's legal woes in the United States. (Compiled by David Cutler, London Editorial Reference Unit. Editing by Brian Love and Alison Williams)