On the Anand Jon sentencing
Designer Anand Jon has been sentenced by a Los Angeles court to 59 years in prison on a total of 59 counts of sexual harassment. Amrita gives a detailed account of the crazy manner in which his family have attempted to get him off at I’m a Celebrity, get me out of prison. While fully understanding that every family would try to get their child off, the kind of outlandish claims they’ve made don’t seem to have helped his case at all.
Last night, Anand Jon’s sister Sanjana appeared on CNN-IBN for what I thought was way too much airtime being devoted to this one case. Among the accusations she made were:
- The sentencing is racist because the police officer who arrested Jon called him a sand nigger (duh! do the cops do the sentencing in America?)
- Jon’s erstwhile business partner is behind this ‘conspiracy’ because Jon refused to allow him to launder money through the company
- People hate fashion designers, you know! (She did’t quite say that, but her conspiracy theories were so vague that they almost went in that direction)
What got my goat was the way she tried to discredit the victims. Now, this is not one person you can accuse of lying. This is 13 different women who’ve brought in charges of varying seriousness, but all related to sexual harassment. And some of them minors when the incidents happened. Why every one of them would choose to lie and point a finger at Anand Jon is beyond me. But of course, victim blaming is the easiest thing to do.
Among the things Sanjana Jon chose to come up with, Look, she was 17 years and 6 months old, how can you call her a child? But, here’s the thing: if the legal age of consent is 18, any age at all below that is still ‘a child’ for legal purposes. You may feel that 17 yrs 6 mo should be acceptable and I may feel that 17 years 8 mo is acceptable while a third person may even insist that 16 yrs should be ok too. This is precisely why there is a system-established age of consent. So that each person’s definition of what constitutes a reasonable age of consent has absolutely no bearing on the case.
At one point, Sanjana asked the CNN IBN reporters, look at them, do they look like naive, innocent women? Presumably, she was pointing to some pictures. To their credit, Rajdeep Sardesai and Anubha Bhonsle did not encourage her in that line of thought. They did not show the pictures and they did not spend time on what the standard is for being accepted as a naive and innocent victim. Totally irrelevant of course. If the women were sexually abused (and the court believes they were, which is what matters), whether they were naive or not is hardly the question. In any case, naive and innocent in legal terms is treated not as a question of morality, but in terms of age. Which is why the harsher condemnation and penalties for abusing a minor.
She also claimed that things had been ‘blown out of proportion’ and ‘it was just a kiss’. Well, a little sexual harassment is all right, I’m sure. Duh. Yuck. No, it’s not, and perhaps Anand Jon didn’t get this, which is why he is where he is today.
Update: Via Blogbharti, came across this excellent piece by Nivedita Menon on the overall poor handling of rape cases in India and why Anand Jon would love to have the case tried here.
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i was happy with the verdict
The more she talks and the more she tries to shift blame, the more I’m convinced he’s guilty as sin. Victim blaming has been their game since day one and she spins the facts like she was playing roulette - for example, when the rapes and assault took place, the youngest victim was 14 yrs old. which is a child by any definition although you’re absolutely correct when you point out a cut-off date is not subjective. Like I wrote, I figured victim blaming would form some part of the their strategy but I can’t believe the lengths to which the Jons are ready to take it - those women could be hookers for real instead of simply being labeled as such by Sanjana Jon and her friends and they’d still have the right to say “No”.
I have no opinion either way as I have not read other than headlines about this.
But I would like to add, fame comes with added responsibilities and one should undertstand that, especially in foreign country when your ‘karma’ (especially bad ones) will be connected to one’s home-country and would reflect bad about entire poulation of one’s country
It is an unfortunate incident and so is the sentence.But,we have the attitude where we can manage situations.It is not so in the US.No one fools around with law.TV channels want juicy stories,once they get one they go on with silly interviews and should be ignored.
I find victim blaming despicable. I agree with Amrita above, “those women could be hookers for real instead of simply being labeled as such by Sanjana Jon and her friends and they’d still have the right to say “No”.”
Art - yes - there doesn’t seem to be any particular reason to suppose that it was wrong.
Amrita - so true. It’s just that victim blaming is such a commonly used strategy everywhere.
IWW - Whether or not fame confers ‘additional’ responsibilities, I suppose everyone has at least to fulfil the basic responsibilities of being a decent human being.
Chowla-ji - ‘unfortunate incident’ is perhaps putting it mildly. In this case actually, I hope the media publicises the verdict and his activities a bit, so that people in power don’t think they can get away with anything.
IHM - sadly, few people would agree. Sanjana being Anand’s sister is resorting to it, but even unconnected people don’t hesitate to label victims any way they like, assuming that ‘women asked for it’.
Anand Jon has admitted to having sex with girls as young as 14 years old. He said that it was consensual sex, but sex with a minor is also a felony in the USA, punishable by jail. He misused his position of power as a fashion designer to luring minors into having sex in return of fame. I don’t know why this important fact is getting lost in this brouhaha. Sadly, Anand is still unwilling to take responsibility for his actions, and his sister is trying to use a technicality (contact with a juror) to acquit him, when that contact happened after the verdict and presumably had little effect on the verdict rendered several months before. Being Yesudas’ nephew, he probably thought that his celebrity status is above the law, but that’s not how it works in the USA. Of course, he will have his chance to appeal his verdict, and maybe the jail term will change, but in my opinion, he belongs in jail for what he has done, period.
Al Pinto, your comment is more factual and convincing; liked it.
Al - true - sex with minors isn’t treated as ‘consensual’. As for his sister and that bit about the juror, I believe they are both now going to be tried for contempt of court.
Also consensual sex with a minor is an offence in India as well, not just in the US.
My only concern about American jurisprudence is that juries do and can get influenced by public opinion and especially so in a high profile case like this. I think trial by jury should be abolished in the US just as it has been abolished in India. In serious cases like this, a single judge should be replaced by a bench of 3 or 5 judges to take the role of a jury.
However, I am not stating my own opinion on whether he was guilty or not. A court of law has found him guilty and he is entitled to appeal the verdict. Being a law student I believe that a trained legal mind would approach every case without bias or getting influenced emotionally.
Many people I spoke to say that this might be a conspiracy, but I am not sure why each of these girls would point fingers at him. Even if it is for the money, wouldn’t one feel awkward if you are claiming to be sexually abused when you were not. Its not like saying, “he winked at me”… this is way more serious.. which is what makes me think that these girls… at least not all of them can be lying.
In India the statutory age of consent is 16 :
http://www.vakilno1.com/bareacts/IndianPenalCode/S375.htm
Hari - thank you for that info. I wonder if the statutory age of consent is taken as seriously here? After all, we have plenty of women getting married even before 16. I know too little about the American system to comment on whether or not juries are effective, but certainly, John Grisham has given us plenty of info on how they can be manipulated
On a more serious note, I do think judges also bring plenty of biases, though as a say, a ‘trained legal mind’ should hopefully be able to acknowledge and confront some of those biases.
Aathira - spot on. I have no idea why 13 different women may all choose to lie about something like this.
While I’m glad about the sentencing, I wonder why it took so long and so many girls’ claims to look into the matter. Isn’t one girl’s complaint good enough? What if he had abused only one girl? Isn’t that crime enough? Just because it is easy to brush aside as ‘conspiracy’?
@apu
I agree Apu…
Dear lord, what is there to analyze and discuss. Anand is a dirty little pedophile and got what he deserved.
By now some 300 lb dude in the slammer has already made Jon his ‘woman’ and passing him around from ‘hand to hand’ for smokes.
I sincerely hope every other pedophile gets the same deal.
And as for anyone who defends him, you are as guilty as he is and deserve the same.