The hotel maid, who accused former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexually assaulting her, has now sued him in a New York state court seeking damages for a "violent and sadistic attack" that humiliated and degraded her.

Nafissatou Diallo, a Guinean immigrant, filed the civil suit in State Supreme Court in Bronx on Monday seeking unspecified damages for mental anguish.

"Believing that he was immune from the laws of this country, Strauss-Kahn intentionally, brutally and violently sexually assaulted Diallo and in the process humiliated, degraded, violated and robbed her of her dignity as a woman," the 16-page lawsuit said.

It adds that Diallo suffered physical and psychological harm due to the "senseless attack" and faces "permanent harm to her professional and personal reputations... from which she may never fully recover."

The civil lawsuit comes even as a criminal case against Strauss-Kahn, 62, is pending in state court in Manhattan.