Anand Jon Alexander

Washington, March 14: Anand Jon, whose Indian-American success story is the stuff of dreams, is in a Los Angeles jail, arrested on rape charges.

According to a criminal complaint filed by the Los Angeles county district attorney’s office, which was made public yesterday, designer Anand Jon Alexander, 33, who is known in the fashion world by the name of Anand Jon, was detained at his posh apartment in Beverly Hills on March 6 after a woman accused him of raping her.

Police allege Anand Jon raped three women, the youngest of them a 15-year-old.

Thiruvananthapuram-born Jon, a designer to the stars of Hollywood, also dresses up other celebrities such as Queen Noor of Jordan, billionaire builder Donald Trump and former New York mayor Rudy Guiliani, who is leading the race in the Republican party for next US President.

Jon was one of only 20 people featured in the New Year issue of Newsweek magazine among leaders in various walks of life to watch in 2007.

He was featured along with Mitt Romney, former Massachusetts governor and US Republican presidential hopeful in 2008, and legendary film director Steven Spielberg, three-time Oscar award winner.

Although Jon has been in the US for many years now and has been blessed with a rapid rise in the highly competitive fashion business, he is an Indian citizen and is in America on a work visa, according to his attorney Ronald Richards.

Jane Robison, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles county district attorney’s office, said Jon has been charged with six felonies and one misdemeanour for alleged sexual assaults between October 2004 and March 5 this year.

According to a criminal complaint filed by this office, in October 2004 Jon raped a woman. This year, on March 3 and 4, he allegedly engaged in sexual acts with the 15-year-old.

Lieutenant Mitch McCann of Beverly Hills Police told reporters that sex-crime detectives began their investigation against the designer after another woman reported being raped by Jon on March 5. McCann said detectives are looking into allegations that Jon engaged in sexual acts with a fourth person, also a minor.

This is not the first time Jon has been the focus of sex-crime detectives. In 2004, prosecutors declined to charge him in a case of sexual assault, but they have resurrected the case in the light of the latest allegations.

Jon went to school in Chennai and later moved to New York where he received a bachelor’s degree from America’s prestigious Parsons School of Design.

Richards said the allegations were concocted by models who failed to get the assignments they had expected from the designer, but he virtually acknowledged consensual sex between the accused and his accusers.

“In these cases, what is going on here is these girls fly in for model jobs after months of dialogue filled with flirtation, they have sexual interaction and if he doesn’t put them in the show, then some time later they claim they had unwanted sex,” Richards was quoted in California newspapers as saying.

Jon, who had stirred New Delhi’s social scene along with hotel heiress Paris Hilton — one of his clients — at a charity event in New Delhi not long ago, will remain in jail until a March 19 court appearance unless he can put up $1.3 million for bail.