"Anand Jon is a filthy rapist who will rot in jail"- Anonymous.
"Whoopee! There's hope for the American justice system yet! Looks like Anand Jon will be enjoying American prison hospitality for the rest of his natural life. Haven't felt this good in months!” - Gary.
"Very sad!! Remember...Curse of this innocent man will be there on those who brought him into this situation. What did the so-called victims lose? Nothing...what did this young man lose? His life.”-zx
In the anonymity of cyberspace, comments rain thick and fast on Anand Jon. The reactions to the India-born fashion designer's conviction have been extreme and in abundance. There are choicest invectives for a serial sex predator, there are expressions of shock and there are conspiracy cries by those who believe he is innocent.
On November 14, fashion designer Anand Jon Alexander was convicted by a Los Angeles court for sexually assaulting aspiring models, including underage girls, whom he allegedly lured with promises of a career in fashion world. Prosecutors accused the Indian-born Anand Jon of using the promise of modelling jobs to lure young women and girls as young as 14 to an apartment for enacting his sadistic sexual fantasies.
Fashion designer Anand Jon found guilty of rape
The social stereotypes about fashion designers would have absolved Anand Jon. Female models have always been considered safe in the company of male fashion designers- often found effeminate and gay. No brownie point there for a straight Anand Jon.
Prosecutor Frances Young told the jury that Jon would lure wannabe models to his Beverly Hills apartment and then force them to perform oral sex, inappropriately touching them or raping them.
Young, report US papers, said the 34-year-old designer kept a "conquest list" in which he noted some of his encounters with the girls and women, abbreviating the explicit sexual acts.
"He talks about violently having sex with underage girls," Young said. "These things are windows into his soul and what excites him," the prosecutor said.
It all happened between 2001 and 2007. Surprising, women in a country like USA with liberal values kept silent about their sexual humiliations. Women eyeing a career in LA suddenly lag behind their counterparts in Lucknow.
Now let's move back to a day before 2001. It was my maiden trip to USA in August 2000 and New York was growing on me. The melange of intimidating high-rises, the pulsating cosmopolitan faces of Times Square and a sense of freedom among the people were moving, revealing.
One such heady evening in August, I found myself at Metronome. It was a happening place that evening, bustling with the hip crowd of America's Asian American community. The occasion was a glittering fashion show to showcase the best of the Asian American fashion designers.
The lustily cheering crowd was all eyes on the models draped in Jon's blue-gray cosmos embroidered silk dress, burgundy leather tops, knee vent pants, black beaded skirt and halter top.
The girls were showcasing respectively the "signature" ( a piece that first help the designer make a mark in the fashion world), "present" ( a look from the Fall 2000 collection) and "future" ( what's next) of the designer. The Kerala-born Indian fashion designer was the new kid on the block in the fast paced New York fashion scene.
The svelte beauties were sashaying down the ramp in jerky gait while the ebullient, long-haired and dark-eyed Indian designer- brimming with attitude- watch them in admiration. One moment the attractive man in a white sleeveless T-shirt giggles to his friends from the press, the other he kisses or hugs someone- either sex- or whispers something to his doting sister Sanjana.
30 of 59 rape charges dropped against Anand Jon
He was a picture of charm and aggression. I found Anand Jon a man of South Asian origin who has arrived on the New York fashion scene. New York indeed lived up to its fabled melting pot image before my eyes.
I learnt that evening from Jon that a who's who of Hollywood royalty was already blazing his portfolio.
From angst-ridden singer Alianis Morrisette, singer Courtney Love , German pop diva Petra Mclean Arnott to actress Lynn Whitfield - all of them were already sporting Anand Jon creations to pep up their great bodies and celebrity charisma. An Anand Jon creation was being considered a passionate blend of sensuality, spirituality and eastern mysticism. He later dressed Paris Hilton, Janet Jackson and the list goes on...
"Yes, carving out a niche here in the fast changing fashion scene is a process but I have got a good start. A very good start and I think it's right," Anand told me, clutching models on either side and posing for pictures. The man who grew up in Kerala and Tamil Nadu (Chennai) was carrying himself well. He indeed had a good start and it was visible.
Jon said he had developed a passion for metals and fabrics growing up under the tutelage of master artisans and his grandmother, one of the most influential women in his life.
At 17, Jon ventured on a scholarship towards an associate degree at the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale, FL, USA, and graduated as the student speaker. He began to flirt with the transition from fine art to fashion and even experimenting with a dosage of technology; showcasing limited edition adornments and jewellery while majoring in both fashion design and communication design at Parsons School of Design in New York City.
When he graduated from Parsons in 1998, this designer, then 24, teamed up with his sister Sanjana and mother Shashi Abraham. Together they launched Amazone, his explosive Spring 1999 debut, followed by Arcane in Fall 99, swiftly penetrating the high end luxury market.
Deep involvement in the yogic disciples from early childhood has set a metaphysical yet playful flavor in all of Anand Jon's creations. Sacred geometry is often an underlying structural element of the Anand Jon collections.
Jon, say connoisseurs, had captured turn of the century romantic mysticism. "I meditate every night and when I wake up, I check my e-mail," he told me.
While in USA Anand knew he has to be different to secure his position and so began with jewellery. Soon he gravitated towards fashion and went on to become the darling of the Palm Beach rich.
The young designer began his blazing career designing one of a kind adornments and jewellery, co-designed by Sanjana, his sister who now fights an impossible battle to prove her brother's innocence.
Anand Jon indicted on more charges of rape, sexual assault
Anand said while designing he never forgot the women who were not models. "Fashion scene in New York is vastly different from that in India. In India, it is much more of a society life.
Here it is career and society and hence influenced more by functionality. People here work and go out and it definitely reflects in their clothes," said Jon, who was already dressing up celebrities for the Oscar nights and Emmy Awards.
By that time the Anand Jon collections had earned stellar media credits including, Harper's Bazaar, In-Style, MTV, E! Entertainment Television, Women's Wear Daily and the New York Times. He was gaining retail exposure from fine stores across America.
In September, Anand Jon was among selected designers at the NYC 2000 Fashion show at Times Square, where actress Lynn Whitfield dazzled the audience in Anand Jon. The then Consul General of India had introduced Anand Jon in a press conference as an outstanding cultural ambassador, for his contribution in fashion and trade. Soon after, Oprah Winfrey picked Anand Jon's look as among the best of the new Millennium.
Glowing tributes in the media came naturally to Anand. "When you wanna get physical or astro-physical...Anand Jon is your guy," said Time Warner's NY1 News. Even then A -magazine included him among the "A-List" of top 20 Asians of the next century. In 2007 he appeared on America's Next Top Model and in publications from Newsweek to London's Daily Telegraph as the man to watch out for.
Soon after his world came crashing down in March 2007, when the Beverly Hills Police Department, responding to a minor's accusation of sexual assault, raided his apartment at 320 North Palm Drive.
The charges of sexual violence against Anand Jon quite surprised me when he was taken into custody. I was wondering why a man on whom models were just swooning over right in front of my eyes would need to force himself upon girls.
I am no great authority on sexuality, neither do we know what one has as fantasies in the deep recesses of mind, but if for Jon the desire were to only lay as many women as he could, he could well have emerged as a fashion world Casanova and flaunt his sexual peccadilloes.
"I love to meditate, dance, go out and do simple things," the designer told me then.
According to media reports, throughout the trial, the evidence produced by the prosecutors were weak and full of anomalies.
Learden Matthies, a senior criminologist with the Los Angeles County Sheriff''s Department, testified that the DNA testing on swabs provided by Jessica B., an alleged victim, gave no indication one way or the other if sex between her and Jon had not been consensual.
Sex charges shatter Anand Jon's image
Investigators also denied of finding any GHB, the date rape drug, that allegedly had been used on a victim in Jon''s apartment.
Two American models have even come forward to testify on oath that Jon was being "falsely implicated". One of the two models - Britney Harrington- claimed that she was approached over the phone, to make false allegations against the fashion designer, and when she refused, she was threatened into keeping mum.
Reports quote Britney and Jami Huebscher, who had accompanied Anand Jon for 12 weeks right before his arrest in March 2007, saying they have seen those models- who've accused Jon- of hobnobbing with him, using his premises, his computer and trying to be close to him.
Throughout the trial what was remarkable was the family support Anand got. His sister Sanjana was always there while his mother flew down from India. "He was victimised by his rivals in fashion industry," says Sanjana.
"He was framed when his company got funded and when Wall Street evaluated him and was about to invest millions into his name."
"The same group of girls went from Los Angeles to Dallas to Houston to file charges against him. Is it logical? If he did something to them then why did these girls follow him? They were not forced? Then why? Nobody asked this questions."
The family said Jon was maligned and convicted without evidence. "It was a build up and girls were recruited over a period of time to frame him," Sanjana alleges.
Anand Jon case also raised the question of racial discrimination in USA. "He was put behind bars without any material evidence and denied a chance to prove his innocence. Then what is justice?" asks Sanjana.
Jon's mother, who has brought racial charges against the US judiciary, says: "Now it's a case between a brown boy and 20 white girls. So they just want to defend the girls." But as support groups in favour of Anand Jon mobile themselves, it seems it is not yet an end of road for the fashion designer.
Even eight years back the designer said he was not too scared of the vagaries of the Big Apple fashion scene. "There are fast changes all the time and that's why I like it so much. I think I am just ready for something like this," he told me. Jon didn't bargain for something like this- guilty or not guilty.
(Sujoy Dhar works for a foreign wire service as a correspondent in Kolkata. He runs a feature service, a portal and contributes for Sify.com as a columnist.)
The views expressed in the article are of the author’s and not of Sify.com.
