Take 5: Power and indiscretions

The married former French finance minister is also considered a possible Socialist candidate for the presidency

Dominique Strauss-Kahn

The head of the International Monetary Fund was arrested on Sunday and has been charged by the New York police over an alleged sex attack on a hotel maid. Strauss-Kahn,62,was taken off an Air France plane at JFK airport minutes before it left for Paris. The married former French finance minister is also considered a possible Socialist candidate for the presidency.

Silvio Berlusconi

The 74-year-old Italian prime minister is facing trials for sex with an underage prostitute and then using his office to cover it up. Prosecutors allege that Berlusconi paid for sex with a Moroccan nightclub dancer,Ruby,while she was only 17. He is also accused of abusing his power by intervening to have Ruby released from police custody on unrelated theft charges. He has not yet appeared in court in the Ruby case.

Eliot Spitzer

Spitzer had to step down 16 months after he was elected New Yorks Democratic governor after being linked to a prostitution ring. According to a federal complaint,Spitzer hired a prostitute and arranged for her to meet him in Washington DC on February 13,2008,for a fee of 4,300. Questions were raised about whether Spitzer used government security while he was engaged in his private activities.

BILL CLINTON

The former US president had a sexual relationship with intern Monica Lewinsky,then 21,which led to

his impeachment by the US House of Representatives,after accusations that he lied about it under oath. He

survived the impeachment after a 21-day Senate trial and served out his term,but his presidency,which ended in 2001,was badly hit.

NEWT GINGRICH

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In 2008,the former House Speaker and Republic leader admitted in an interview with the Christian conservative group,Focus on the Family,that he had an extramarital affair during the 1990s with his former staffer Callista Sibek while he was still married to his second wife. Gingrich had pursued the impeachment of Bill Clinton at the same time as he was secretly having an extra-marital relationship himself.