Fashion Foul

Emily claims she tried to pull away but Anand grabbed her, turned her around, pushed her over, pulled up her skirt and raped her from behind. Emily scrambled from the room, trying not to cry. Anand followed, demanding that Nizewitz return home to get Emily's luggage so she could spend the night with him.

"Are you on drugs?" Nizewitz asked. "No way."

Emily said nothing to Nizewitz on the way home. "I was so ashamed of myself for being around him so long and letting him do these things to me," Emily says. "That was the last time he raped me."

Emily returned to Texas and announced to her family that she was no longer interested in pursuing a career in modeling. But she had one last brush with the designer, who was trying to interest her father in a business deal. They flew to Miami for an Anand Jon event that was being filmed; Emily wanted to stay home but couldn't tell her father why she didn't want to make the trip. Anand Jon bitched her out in front of the other models, but his criticism rolled off her back.

When Anand didn't get the response he wanted, he tried the old charm. "Maybe you can come for my spring fashion show, and we can rekindle this relationship," Anand said. Emily played along but stopped responding to his text messages when she got back to Texas. His spell was broken.

But its after-effects remained. She couldn't tell her roommates that her dream-come-true experiences in New York and India were nightmares.

"I didn't want to feel as tricked and used as I did," Emily says. Soon after the break she spiraled into depression. Terrified that she might have AIDS, Emily donated plasma several times, knowing that an HIV test was given before each donation. The tests were negative, but the terror remained.

Then she met "Peter," a law student. After a few months of dating, she told him what had happened. He told Emily that the FBI had an anonymous tip line. On July 10, 2006, Emily filed a report and received a call from a female agent, who urged her to file a complaint with Dallas and New York authorities. And she pushed Emily to tell her parents.

"Please remember you didn't do anything wrong," the FBI agent said. "You are a victim."

That day, Emily sat down with one of her older brothers and spilled her guts. In September, Emily finally told her parents what had happened. They were calm but devastated. "I drove him to the hotel where he raped my daughter," her father told The New York Times in April.

Emily flew to New York to file a report with the section working on Internet Crimes Against Children. Emily says she was told by a NYPD detective that unless she had physical evidence, like blood or semen, they could not prosecute Anand Jon.

Emily didn't know that Brianna, another young woman who had first met Anand Jon in Dallas, had tried to file a case with the same detective a year earlier after the designer lured her to New York for Fashion Week in February and then allegedly forced her to give him oral sex.

Brianna claims that Sanjana found out she was 17 and started shrieking at her brother: "She's a minor. What the hell were you thinking? What about our careers?"

The next day, Brianna claims, Anand forced her into sex again.

It wasn't until after a trip to Los Angeles in May 2004 that Brianna went to police. She'd rationalized everything that had happened in New York and convinced herself that she would be stronger. But within minutes of seeing Anand Jon again, she claims she was forced to give him a blow job.

Then Brianna returned one day to find him recording a video in his bedroom with several girls; Mandy, she says, was only 15 years old. "I walked in, and Anand's under the sheets and had all these girls around him," Brianna says. "Mandy was brushing his hair."

Maybe Brianna couldn't be strong for herself, but she could be strong for Mandy. She walked out and found the 15-year-old's father sitting in the living room. The father went to every event at which his daughter modeled. She told the man what was going on.

"I've been abused by Anand Jon," Brianna told him. "Here's my number. Get her out of here." The man ran into the room and pulled his daughter out.

That incident gave Brianna the willpower to leave as well. After a screaming match in the lobby of a Beverly Hills hotel—where she claims Anand Jon grabbed her arm and yelled that she'd never work in the modeling business again—Brianna escaped with the help of two family members.

Soon after that, Brianna got up her courage and called the police in New York. The detective asked why she kept going back. He declined to open a case. No blood or semen. Authorities in Los Angeles, however, were willing to pursue a case.

A few weeks later, Emily met Anand Jon.