the cup of something big. Jon, a graduate of the Parsons School of Design, was determined to make his mark as an upcoming designer. He had the right credentials having interned with Donna Karen and partied with Gianni Versace and was frequently seen out with his trademark entourage of young, scantily-clad women. He has dressed socialites like Paris Hilton and Lydia Hearst and surrounded himself in the world of celebrity. He gained popularity early in this decade when his designs were reportedly worn by celebrities like Michelle Rodriguez, Paula Abdul, Nadja Swarovski of Swarovski crystals, Emmy award winners Lynn Whitfield & Susan Lucci, musician Alanis Morissette, Mya, the Artist formerly known as Prince, MTV’S Ananda Lewis, Courtney Love, Shashi Tripathi- the Consul General of India , TV’s Gina Torres (Cleopatra 2525), Grammy Nominee Cherokee and Mary J. Blige.India Today January 2000 edition picked him as one among the 21 faces of the future, while East magazine in its Most Influential Asians issue and A-magazine January 2000 picked him among the A-List of top 20 Asians to watch for the next
century. So, when someone with so many feathers on his cap is found accused of 46 criminal counts involving alleged sexual wrongdoing in California, it certainly raises eyebrows. Anand Jon has been sentenced to a minimum of 59 years in prison by a California court for preying upon seven young aspiring models as young as 14 and sexually assaulting them. The alleged charges levied on him are heinous all over the world. The US law is pondering of giving him no second chance to plead ‘not guilty’.But Anand Jon has pleaded no guilty. His sister Sanjana, herself an acclaimed fashion designer, has stood by her brother. She strongly believes in the innocence of Anand. Due to one of its kind judgment in the US Judiciary, Anand Jon has knocked on the doors of the Ministry of External Affairs in India (MEA) in New Delhi, just to re-look into his case and officiate it to be transferred to the Indian court of law.
Undoubtedly, the matter has caught national and international attention with everybody wanting to know the truth behind the entire issue. Since Anand is incarcerated in the US, it was left to Sanjana to raise the issue in the External Affairs Ministry in India. Sanjana Jon is outraged by the US court verdict and claims that it is a clear case of injustice and racism. She has been running from pillar to post in the Indian government and has met almost everyone who matters, but without any support.
Sanjana says she approached the Ministry of External Affairs here in New Delhi, carrying a lot of evidence that proves Anand’s innocence but to her utter despair, it was not acknowledged. When Bureaucracy Today met this lady, Sanjana showed evidence of porn sites including sugardaddy4me.com, where the picture of one of the girls (who claimed to be a victim of Anand Jon) is available. Sanjana claims that while prosecutors in the US cast the alleged victims as naive, helpless small-town girls, some of them have highly doubtful characters. And very importantly, all the alleged cases started coming in light only when Anand’s company ‘Jeansis’ started getting funds in 2006 from the Wall Street. Before that, nobody ever accused him of assaulting them sexually though the victims allege that the incident happened much before 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005. And after that they all maintained their connection with Anand Jon; in fact, they went around with him in different parts of the world related to various projects.
However, prosecutors said the crimes started in 2001 when Jon set up a fashion design business through which he lured would-be models to Los Angeles. The police got involved in March 2007 after a woman said she was sexually assaulted at his Beverly Hills apartment. They also claim that Anand has allegedly committed a variety of horrific acts on three separate victims between October 2004 and March 5, 2007. Along with two counts of forcible rape, he is also facing charges of sexual battery by restraint, attempted forcible copulation. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge David Wesley announced the judgment, saying there were no new grounds for granting a fresh trial. Anand faces similar charges in Texas and New York where he has been indicted.
Whatever may be the final outcome of Sanjana’s relentless crusade to save her high-profile brother, the fact remains that Jon’s case is not alone when an NRI has been convicted in the country of his residence and the Government of India has not bothered to go into the merits by studying the case to ensure whether some injustice has been done to its citizen.
“Earlier and even today, we hear of Indians being brutally tortured or murdered in Australia or any other western countries, and we here listen it like a helpless lion, drowned in the well. The maximum that we can do is to march a candle light protest just to mark our humanitarian battle for the deceased,” says Sanjana.
Sanjana Jon feels heartbroken at the response from the Government of India. She claims to have met Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Pranab Mukherjee, S M Krishna, LK Advani, and Vayalar Ravi , AK Antony and also twitter guru Shashi Tharoor. But none of them has so far lent a helping hand or even promised her that the government will look into the merits of her brother’s case. Sanjana only pleaded with them to look into her brother’s case as a special one and he must be extradited to India and put on trial here. She produced enough evidences which if monitored as a case of racism against the Indians will bring truth to the forefront. She claims, “Evidences in the form of report of rape kit, lie-detector test, originals pictures of the alleged victims happily embracing with Anand and other supporting documents were presented to the External Affairs Ministry, but apart from showing verbal support, they never showed any sincere support.”This issue was also raised at the recent ‘Pravasi Bhartiya Diwas’ in Delhi , where Gayatri Kumar, the officer in charge of the US and also Shashi Tharoor claimed that they have done everything at their level. As the matter is in the US court, they can’t do more than what they have done till date.
Sanjana Jon laments, “The person who was once called the cultural ambassador of India and touted as India ’s best is being ignored completely.” The response of the Indian government is simply heart-breaking and “when they show their inability to consider a case as injustice, then where a citizen should approach? If you see the plight of a mother and sister, we had left not a single door knocking pleading justice for our pleas,” she says.
Explaining the intricacies of the case, Sanjana and her mother Shashi blames the rising level of racism in the west against the Asians for the current plight of Anand. According to them, the success for Anand also brought a black moment in his life and it all started in 2007 when Anand along with his partner, an Italian guy, was floating a company. Due to Anand’s hi-level status and quality of work, he was flooded with money, which created a rift with his partner who also wanted a part of the funding. After Anand’s rejection of his demand, his business partner plotted a series of event against him, which subsequently landed him in jail. All the sexual charges leveled on Anand have been refuted in the results of the several tests done. All the charges have been fabricated by the girls who have alleged to be sexually assaulted by Anand, but they are still happy to get clicked in a photo frame with the culprit, point out Sanjana.
“Stating the status of NRIs today, it’s an irony that our own government is showing its inability to save its own citizen,” claims Sanjana. The government must
streamline rules and laws which take proper interest in the legal, security and other related issues of NRIs.According to the Falserape.net website, Rape is a terrible crime. It should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. But false rape charges are a troublesome reality. At least 10 percent and perhaps as many as 40 percent of all rape charges are lies. Research results In the Midwest: 41% of the total rape cases were recanted by the alleged victim during a 9-year study in a metropolitan Midwestern town. 45 of the 109 complainants admitted that no rape had occurred in period. The incidence figure (from 1978 to 1987) of false rape varied from year to year and ranged from a low of 27% to a high of 70%.
The alleged rape victims admitted that they had made the false rape charges for three reasons: To create an alibi, to get revenge and to get attention or sympathy. Anand Jon might be the case of racist bias and as reported, he had been often called ‘sand nigger’ and ‘curry-flavored Indian’.
“Perhaps, the family just has relied on the Indian pressure or the public protest to get the justice for Anand or there must be a lack of funds in pursuing the case further. Also, there could be a problem of multiple state judgments, which dispersed the case. So, my suggestion is that the family can form a board of lawyers and raise funds for them, who can actually and sincerely look into the matter,” concludes Abhay Kashyap, Advocate, Supreme Court of India.
