Indian-origin fashion designer Anand Jon, currently lodged in a jail in the United States on multiple charges of molestation and attempt to rape, is innocent, said two of the models who have worked with him.
Britney Harrington and Jamie Huebscher, two United States-based models, who had been working with Jon for a year prior to his arrest last March, addressed the media in Mumbai on Monday in his lawyer Majid Memon's office.
"Anand is innocent. I challenge the girls (who accused him of rape/molestation) to confront me. I was there (when the alleged incidents happened) and nothing happened," said Harrington.
She said that some of the girls even approached her to ask her to join them in their complaints against him.
"I got threatening calls, asking me to keep quiet," she said, adding "I am ashamed of our (US) justice system".
The other girl, Jammie Huebscher, said, "I was present on several of the occasions when those incidents (allegedly) happened. He is innocent, it is a conspiracy."
Harrington also questioned the complainant girls' conduct. Many of them continued to work with Anand after the alleged incidents, she pointed out.
Anand's sister Sanjana Jon said that her brother was going through this plight as he was an Indian citizen and a member of the minority community, "We are living the American nightmare," she said.
Memon, also a member of the Nationalist Congress Party, said that he was seeking a meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and United Progressive Alliance chairman Sonia Gandhi to apprise them of Jon's plight.
