Jun 12, 2007 1:20 pm US/Pacific
Designer Charged With 46 Sexual Assault Counts
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (CBS) ―
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The designer, who goes by the name Anand Jon, is free on $1.3 million bail.
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Celebrity fashion designer Anand Jon Alexander was charged with 13 new counts alleging that he sexually assaulted a string of female victims, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office announced Tuesday.
The charges, filed Monday, bring the total number of counts against Alexander to 46. He is scheduled to make a pre-trial court appearance Tuesday in Beverly Hills.
Forty of the charges are felonies and six are misdemeanors, with the 18 alleged victims ranging in age from 14 to 27, according to Jane Robison of the District Attorney's Office.
The new counts include forcible rape, sexual penetration by a foreign object and forcible oral copulation, according to Robison.
The India-born, New York-based designer, who goes by the name Anand Jon, is free on $1.3 million bail. But prosecutors plan to ask Superior Court Judge Elden Fox to increase Alexander's bail to $2.3 million, Robison said.
According to the designer's Web site, he is the winner of various fashion awards, including a 2002 People's Choice "Best New Designer" award and a 2002-2003 Fashion Week of the Americas "International New Star" designer award. He was a profiled designer on "America's Next Top Model" in 2003.
Newsweek has described him as a "party boy in Miami in the 1990s ... who as a Parsons-trained designer launched his first line at New York Fashion Week in 1999 and has gone on to dress the likes of Paris Hilton."
(© 2007 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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