Archive for the ‘The couple’ Category
Female model
New York: Indian-American fashion designer Anand Jon Alexander, facing a 59-year jail term in California for sexually abusing aspiring models, was on Tuesday sentenced to five years in prison by a federal court here for molesting a woman whom he allegedly lured on promise of modelling work.
The 39-year-old India-born celebrity fashion designer was arrested in 2007 in California on charges that he preyed upon seven young aspiring models, some as young as 14 and sexually assaulted them.
He is currently serving 59 years to life in prison in California.Alexander had pleaded guilty in February to one count of criminal sexual act in Manhattan Supreme Court.
The prison time of five years in New York amounts to time served in California, which means no additional years will be added to Alexander’s California sentence of 59 years.Judge Cassandra Mullen announced the prison term for Alexander who said in court, “I would like to thank everyone for being here.”
Alexander’s sister Sanjana Jon was among several supporters who were present in court for the sentencing and held banners that read ‘Free Anand Jon’.
In a plea deal reached with federal prosecutors, Alexander had pleaded guilty to one count of criminal sexual act against one aspiring female model.
In turn, Manhattan prosecutors dropped almost their entire case against him.He had initially been charged with preying on a dozen women in a 49-count indictment in New York.
Assistant District Attorney Maxine Rosenthal had said the plea deal was accepted “to spare the victims from having to testify at multiple proceedings” and in consideration of Alexander’s lengthy sentence in California.
Rosenthal said Alexander is facing similar charges in Texas.The Kerala-born fashion designer had launched a fashion line in 1999 and was featured on ‘America’s Next Top Model’ working with celebrities such as socialite Paris Hilton.
His designs have been worn by media mogul Oprah Winfrey and singer Janet Jackson.
His attorney said Alexander admitted to the crime so he could get evidence and materials from New York prosecutors needed to “effectively overturn his California conviction”.
He said some of the materials turned over by Manhattan prosecutors as part of the pre-trial process would be crucial as Alexander continues to work on his California appeal.
Relationships
My husband has signed up to online dating sites.
I’VE only been married two years and I’ve discovered my husband has registered himself on online dating websites.
I am 38 and live in South Africa. My husband is 43. When I confronted him about it he said that he didn’t think we would make it through our first year of marriage and that’s why he went looking for someone else.
This is his second marriage and apparently he pulled these stunts with his first wife as well.
Friends warned me about him and now I’m wondering if they were right. He has children from his first marriage and had the snip before we met. I desperately want kids but he won’t have it reversed.
I own everything in our marriage – the house, the car. Is he just using me as a meal ticket? Seeing that stuff on his phone was the last straw for me.
DEIDRE SAYS
Your needs and feelings certainly seem to come low down on his list of priorities but breaking up with him doesn’t mean that Mr Perfect wanting marriage and children will necessarily turn up soon.
It’s not long since you two thought you loved one another enough to get married, so give it one more shot.
Tell your husband you are thinking of ending your marriage and that he needs to make some major changes if you two are to stay together – come off the dating websites and be open about his internet use, and at least talk to you about having the baby you long for.
If he’s not prepared to make a serious effort for your sake, or you feel talking gets you nowhere, arrange to see a relationship counsellor.
The couple
‘We could have been arrested’
Among the growing number of mixed-race couples documented in the survey are University of Notre Dame graduates Matt and Cheron Merten, of South Bend.
The couple — Matt, 33, from Minnesota, is white, and Cheron, 26, a Chicago native, is black — married on June 12, 2010, 43 years to the day after the Supreme Court declared state laws banning marriage between people of a different race, known as anti-miscegenation laws, unconstitutional.
The couple, who attended the university at the same time but did not meet until after graduation, said they feel fortunate to live during a time of increased acceptance of interracial marriage.
“For the most part we feel blessed to live in the generation we live
in,” said Matt, who is an instructor and director in the Department of
Music at Notre Dame.
“Thirty years ago, this couldn’t even have happened,” said Cheron, the activities manager at the Kroc Center in South Bend. “We could have been arrested and put in jail for wanting to be man and wife.”
Not that it has not been difficult. Cheron, for example, said she lost a friend because of her decision to marry Matt.
“He made a comment, he said, ‘I don’t know why you can’t stick to your own kind,’ and that was pretty hurtful,” she said of the person, whom she no longer talks to.
Prior to Loving v. Virginia, a number of states, including all of the former slave states and Oklahoma, still outlawed marriage, and in some cases even cohabitation, between people of different races, labeling it a felony in most cases.
Interracial couples in Indiana could not legally marry until 1965.
The Loving case actually dates to the late 1950s.
In 1958, police in Virginia arrested husband and wife Richard and Mildred Loving for violating the state’s law banning marriage or cohabitation between people of different races.
The couple, both residents of the commonwealth, wed in nearby Washington, D.C., to avoid the law, but then returned to the state to live.
The judge in the case sentenced the couple to one year in prison but suspended the sentence on the condition that they leave the state and not return for 25 years.
The Lovings complied, but later filed a motion to have the judgment vacated on the grounds the anti-miscegenation law violated the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Supreme Court eventually agreed, and in 1967 issued a judgment declaring state laws banning marriage or cohabitation between people of different races unconstitutional.
Despite that, such laws remained on the books in South Carolina and Alabama until 1997 and 2000, respectively.