She had dollar signs in her eyes.
Before she ever walked into Dominique Strauss-Kahn's dazzling suite at the Sofitel, his accuser was well aware of his VIP status -- and planning to get her hands in his deep pockets, sources told The Post.
"She figured he's a rich dude, and she would get paid," said a source close to the defense investigation. "She was told by the crew she ran with that this was a gold mine."
The maid, who routinely traded sex for money with male guests, parked her cleaning cart outside Suite 2806 on the morning of May 14 and keyed her way into the room -- knowing what he looked like from a photo hanging in a maid closet that identified him as an important guest.
Multiple versions have emerged of what happened next, but nobody disputes that the 32-year-old maid performed oral sex on the Frenchman known as "the Great Seducer."
Sources now tell The Post that when the two were finished, the woman demanded cash from Strauss-Kahn -- but he refused to pay.
"There was an expectation of money after the fact, but he was dismissive," the source said.
And not gently, the source said -- DSK brushed off the maid's request as he turned his back and got dressed.
She pressed her case.
"She remained in the room with him while he got dressed for at least nine minutes," the source said.
The humiliating exchange sparked the maid's anger, prosecutors suspect.
The woman's lawyer has charged that DSK angrily grabbed her breast and vagina, leaving her with bruises to the groin area.
The fight also apparently prompted DSK to bolt the Sofitel in such a hurry that he left behind a cellphone.
Unraveling the explosive events became more complicated with the accuser's varying versions of what happened both in the hotel suite and afterward, prosecutors say.
In the hours following the incident, she told cops Strauss-Kahn chased her, grabbed her, locked the suite's door and then dragged her into a bedroom to force her to perform oral sex.
She claimed she broke free only to be dragged into a bathroom to complete the sexual encounter -- and that at one point Strauss-Kahn tried to pull off her pantyhose and rape her.
She also claimed she didn't know who her alleged attacker was.
"She didn't know who Dominique Strauss-Kahn was at the time of the incident. I was the one who explained to her," a relative told AFP.
Yet within a day, the maid was recorded speaking on the phone with a jailed drug dealer, reportedly crowing about a potential windfall if she pursued charges.
Her lies then caught up with her.
"In the weeks following the incident charged in the indictment, the complainant told detectives and assistant district attorneys on numerous occasions that, after being sexually assaulted . . . she fled to an area of the main hallway of the hotel's 28th floor and waited there until she observed the defendant . . . entering an elevator," reads a letter from prosecutors.
She said she then alerted her supervisor and waited for him.
She repeated this version to cops and a grand jury -- but finally admitted she later cleaned a nearby room and DSK's suite before reporting the incident to her supervisor.
The DA's case has fallen into turmoil, and DSK was freed of his strict bail conditions.
"The investigation is continuing. It may lead to dismissal. It may not," a senior prosecutor involved in the case said yesterday, adding the DA's Office has not decided whether to go forward with the case.
DSK enjoyed his newfound freedom yesterday by leaving his swanky TriBeCa town house at 3 p.m. in one of a small fleet of limos.
After a brief stop at the TimeWarner Center in Columbus Circle, he and wife Anne Sinclair went to the Museum of Modern Art, dining in the fifth-floor café that overlooks a lush garden, workers said. They were back home at around 5:30 p.m.
"He looked extremely happy -- he's free," said one museum worker.
At the Sofitel, one worker was mystified by the sullied maid's web of sex and lies, and doubted others would ever follow suit. "Why would they risk that?" he said.
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