Anand Jon’s supporters meet lawmaker seeking help to release from prison

Members of American Justice Alliance and several activists met California Assemblywoman Dr. Shirley Weber of San Diego on March 6, to discuss about the release of fashion designer Anand Jon Alexander from jail. The diverse group ranged in race, age and careers from college students to prominent attorneys, filmmakers, actresses and exonerees.

Rajendra Vora, founder and president of Jain Social Group of Beverly Hills, USA, along with Sonal Vora attended the discussions.

Everyone pointed out the plight of Anand Jon, who was put in a prison in San Diego, 13 years ago at the age of 29. They noted the unfair trial and prosecutorial misconduct, which denied justice to an aspiring designer, who introduced Ivanka Trump, daughter of President Trump, to the fashion world, when she was in her teens. Marla Maples (ex wife of President Trump), Paris Hilton and other celebrities also worked with Annad Jon

As Jeffrey Deskovic, himself an exoneree and head of the Jeffrey Deskovic Foundation, told the Vanguard, ‘Anand Jon’s case is fraught with prosecutorial misconduct and bad lawyering. It is no wonder he was wrongfully convicted.’

The injustice meted out to Anand Jon is getting more attention these days and many people come forward to support his cause. Meanwhile, the cases against him in New York and Texas were dismissed. This has now allowed him to concentrate to overturn his California convictions.

The American Justice Alliance, a human rights organization, has engaged noted legal experts on this case.

Last year, Jon has barely survived a racial hate crime stabbing inside the prison. He is suing the State of California for an undisclosed amount.

Jon was a rising star in the fashion industry in 2007 when he was arrested and ultimately convicted of one count of rape and many counts of lesser sexual offenses. Although there were no injuries on anyone and he had no history of violence, he was sentenced to 59 years to life in prison.

Attorney Tim Milner briefly explained the case to Dr. Weber. He said that he has been a lawyer for 40 years and usually tends to shy away from scandalous sex cases, but this was an exceptional case. ’This man is innocent,’ he said. ’He also had one of the worst trials that I’ve seen.’

‘He was a fashion designer featured on the cover of Newsweek and well known by many celebrities,’ he said, noting his involvement stemmed from the commutation paperwork. ’We’re here today because we’re generally trying to get support for this man—whatever that turns out to be.’

Assemblymember Patty Lopez wrote a letter earlier to then-Governor Jerry Brown: ‘In our research, we found that the misconduct of the Beverly Hills Police Department and the Los Angeles District Attorney in the People v. Anand Jon Alexander (LA Superior Case No. BA327190) utterly shocking.’

She noted that ‘the trial judge on the record stated he was ‘troubled’ with this case and ‘not happy with the way the [prosecutors] handled this case.’ Even more disturbing, a decade later the BHPD continues to withhold favorable materials they previously admitted to possessing and now refuse to explain how or why they cannot produce it pursuant to court orders.’

Milner noted that Anand Jon was associated with a number of young women who basically wanted to become the next ‘It Girl.’ Jon conceded his party boy lifestyle and that there was consensual sex, but as even the evidence showed there were ‘no assault-related findings,’ while any allegation of physical force or threats was dubious.
The allegations came in months or even years after the fact.

It’s basically a group of women who got together later and decided… ‘we didn’t get to go on the catwalk we thought we were going to,’ he said. ’They came together and came up with a story that could be believed by a jury.’

He called it, ‘a perfect storm of things that could go wrong’ and explained a shocking but documented account of juror misconduct. One of the jurors attempted to contact the sister of Anand Jon—’ there’s an actual mini-trial during this trial (and) he gets convicted of juror misconduct.’
‘Juror No.12 actually gets convicted of juror misconduct before the Anand Jon trial is over—that should be an automatic mistrial… The judge did not get him a new trial,’ he said.
He also noted that there are comments by the prosecutor ‘which just flat out show racial bias.’
The prosecution painted a picture that of stereotype of a dirty Indian, besmirching the clean, young, presumably pristine and innocent ‘white women.’
Jon in contrast to the women was portrayed as a dirty, smelly sex cult guru.
The prosecutor said: ‘You know that Ferrari T-shirt that the clerk has. I don’t know if you want to do that, take a whiff of it. It’s not pleasant. It corroborates exactly what they said. He smelled. His apartment was disgusting.’
Later the prosecutor added, ‘They all told you he smelled,’ and she specifically demonized Anand Jon’s religion Indian-Jewish culture, meditating cross legged, Kamasutra and foreign (Hebrew) symbols.
This is a clear appeal to racism and indirect violation of the court ruling not to go into race or religious areas.
Another major problem is the Myspace communications withheld for over a decade. The premise of the prosecution was that these women had no motives, do not know each other, and came together with similar complaints, therefore they must have experienced the same behavior by Anand Jon.

But in fact, as is documented in the hundreds of online exchanges that were withheld by the Beverly Hills police for over a decade, and now included in numerous new filings, there is a concerted effort and financial-publicity motives by several of the victims to communicate and get the stories out. The prosecution not only lied to the jury about the state of the evidence, but withheld it from the defense.
This is a clear Brady violation by the prosecution. This is prosecutorial misconduct.
Tim Milner said, ‘We can see blatant racism here. It hurt to even hear it.’
Amy Povah, who herself served nine years in prison before President Bill Clinton commuted her 24-year sentence for conspiracy charges in a high profile MDMA (Ecstasy) case dating back to 1989, said, ‘What concerns me about Anand, is that clemency is about mercy. So many people receive clemency who are not innocent… The sentence he received is so disproportionate to a normal case with the same allegations. He was convicted on very thin evidence.’
Setting aside other issues, she said that ‘59 years to life is madness for a first offense with someone… it so disproportionate to other cases. Many rape cases, they never served a day, they just got probation.’
She added, ‘This really seems like this was racially charged with a lot of motive behind it.’ Amy Povah added, ‘Dr. Weber was very moved by the presentation. She kept talking long after our time was up, that’s always a good sign.’
Dr. Weber listened patiently to the case for nearly an hour. While she acknowledged the injustice and made significant recommendations on how best to proceed, she still needed to consult with others with expertise within her legal team and others.
Vora noted, ‘Dr Shirley Weber was shocked to read Anand’s case and listened everyone very carefully.’ He said ‘a lot of work still needs to be done. We are very hopeful that a team will get assembly members and senators to pick up the cause and tell the governor to get him freed.’
Shazia Khan, a young documentary filmmaker and graduate of UCLA Master’s program covering the meeting, stated, ‘I saw the gross injustice which is going on for so many years,’ she said. She found the sentence ‘completely disproportionate to the things that happened.’
Ms. Khan explained, ‘I’m from India and 14 to 15 years in jail is a sentence that you get for murder in India. He’s already suffered that sentence. His trauma should be over.’
Mariana Cordoba comes from a prestigious diplomatic family in Colombia, and is a successful actress currently residing in Los Angeles.
‘I got involved when I started reading about Anand’s case,’ Ms. Cordoba explained.
International Innovators research team of Victoria Olongo and Georgette Ayaz have been working on Anand Jon’s freedom, among other charitable causes. Ms. Olongo’s brother Alfred Olongo was shot and killed by police in San Diego and has since become actively involved in such abuse of power cases.
Jon’s legal team is continuing with the habeas process as well. But, if anything, his case shows how difficult this is—grave injustice, compelling narrative, and a large and diverse group of supporters with lots of resources behind them, and we are still going on 13 years of wrongful incarceration.

An abridged version of a report by David M. Greenwald