Anand Jon, Fashion Designer to the Stars, Faces Life in Prison for Rape
Anand Jon with Paula Abdul at Paris Hilton's 26th Birthday Party in 2007. Image: Jamie McCarthy, WireImage
The 35-year-old designer, once a friend of celebrities including Paris Hilton and Michelle Rodriguez and designer to A-List clients like Mary J Blige and Janet Jackson, was convicted in November of 14 counts of forcible rape after being arrested in 2007.
The prosecution says Alexander (who goes by Anand Jon) flaunted his designer status to lure the aspiring models to his place in Beverly Hills, Calif.. often surfing the internet for potential victims. While he promised a fancy photo shoot awaited the girls at his pad, he instead attacked them.
At today's court sentencing, the models are set to speak, while The Huffington Post reports Jon faces 3 terms of 53 years and six months to life in prison.
On the flip side, the defense claims the women are seeking revenge against the India-born designer after they didn't land modeling gigs, while Alexander's sister, Sanjana, has set up a support site at AnandJon.com and is calling it all a case of racial profiling.
"Being an Indian in the US, I know that we won't get justice," she says on the site. She has also plead to the Indian government for help and threatened to go on a hunger strike.
In an odd twist of events, Sanjana herself will have a hearing in September due to accepting notes and calls from one of the jurors on the case, who was eventually kicked off the trial.
Alexander has also been indicted in New York on charges stemming from nine women.
Stay tuned for the outcome of today's sentencing.
Tags: anand jon, anand jon alexander, AnandJon, AnandJonAlexander, fashion court cases, FashionCourtCases, janet jackson, JanetJackson, mary j blige, MaryJBlige, model rape, ModelRape, models, paris hilton, ParisHilton, racial profiling, RacialProfiling, sexual assault, SexualAssault






lucky, 8-31-2009, 5:03PM
His defense is absurd. There are too many woman and girls involved for this to be just disgruntled models. To claim racial profiling is an insult to all minorities. His sister should get a life and be glad she has never been raped.
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