Los Angeles: An Indian-born celebrity fashion designer already accused of raping or sexually assaulting 12 women and girls who came to him as aspiring models was charged on Tuesday with attacks on six additional victims.
Los Angeles prosecutors have now charged Anand Jon, an Indian-born designer who has appeared on the popular television show America's Next Top Model, with a total of 46 counts involving 18 victims, all with ties to the fashion industry and between the ages of 14 and 27.
Jon, who is free on $1.3 million bail in the Los Angeles case, was also being sought by authorities in Dallas in connection with three sexual assaults there.
Prosecutors said the 33-year-old fashion designer, who was touted by Newsweek magazine as a person to watch in 2007, was expected to enter a plea to the new charges later on Tuesday.
Jane Robison, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County District Attorney, said that her office would ask that Jon's bail be raised to $2.3 million in light of the new charges. She said he would also face extradition to Texas for an arraignment there.
Prosecutors say all of the women who have accused Jon of rape or sexual assault came to him as aspiring models and Superior Court Judge Eldon Fox has prohibited him from being alone with any woman under the age of 30.
The charges against Jon include forcible rape, sexual battery, sexual penetration by a foreign object, sodomy by use of force, forcible oral copulation, false imprisonment by violence, assault with the intent to commit a felony, lewd act on a child, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and sexual exploitation of a child.
Prosecutors said the attacks occurred between November of 2002 and March of this year and that Jon was first investigated after one of the alleged victims contacted authorities.
He was arrested at his home in Beverly Hills in March. According to a December profile of Jon in Newsweek, the designer has dressed such celebrities as Paris Hilton and Janet Jackson, plans to launch a new line of jeans and is developing a reality TV show about his life.
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