Jon’s mother Sashi Abraham is hoping for a different outcome in the second trial. Jon’s family has alleged that the first trial was vitiated with racial undertones. “They called him sand nigger, curry smelling,” recalled Ms Abraham, who was in Chennai last week.Read more..
A victim of jealousy, says Anand’s mother
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Shashi Abraham, the 56-year-old mother of imprisoned Los Angeles-based Indian fashion designer Anand Jon, says her son is the victim of false allegations raised by a set of “jealous models”.
She said her son’s meteoric rise in the industry had caused much jealousy and a lobby was at work to eliminate him from the high fashion business .
In March 2007, law enforcers in the U.S. charged 33-year-old Jon with 32 counts of “rape, sexual battery, lewd acts on a child and sexual misbehaviour” against several women, most of them fashion model-hopefuls between the ages of 14 and 23.
Ms. Abraham told The Hindu on Thursday that she was “running from pillar to post” to raise $1 million for her son’s bail. She hopes to sell her property in Kochi before her son’s bail plea comes up before a Los Angeles court on October 25.
Jon hails from a Syrian Christian family of rubber plantation owners in central Kerala. According to Shashi, Jon never consumed drugs, alcohol or tobacco. He was into meditation and Indian astrology. His works, mostly embroidered jeans with hand-painted symbols of snakes and lotuses, reflect his Indian heritage, she said.Read more.. These words were once scribbled by designer Anand Jon Alexander to describe the world of fashion. Jon, as he was known in the world of couture, plummeted from being a celebrity designer in 1999 to being convicted for 59 years for serial rape, sexual battery and assault in 2008.While his appeal against his sentence in Los Angeles has been rejected twice, Jon faces a fresh trial on similar charges in New York, beginning this month.