In March 2007, Beverly Hills police arrested Jon after a woman accused him of rape. A grand jury later indicted him on 59 counts, but prosecutors eventually dropped more than half of them before trial. On Thursday, they said they did so to focus on the strongest allegations. During the trial, prosecutors accused Jon of using the promise of modeling jobs to lure girls as young as 14 to a squalid-looking apartment in Beverly Hills, where he acted out sadistic fantasies. Prosecutors played a homemade videotape in which he asked a 17-year-old girl to strip and then sexually abused her. The girl said on the tape that she was 18 but testified in court that Jon told her to lie about her age. Others testified that Jon forced them to perform sex acts on him or that he touched them without consent. In addition to the victims in California, prosecutors called seven other women to tell jurors about alleged assaults in New York and Texas, where Jon also has been indicted.

But Jon’s supporters said they believed his high-powered defense team had presented jurors with a compelling case for his innocence. Confronting some of the women with cellphone and e-mail records, the attorneys sought to point up inconsistencies in their accounts and show that they had contact with Jon after the alleged assaults. The lawyers told jurors that the women were liars, with some of them angry at the way Jon had treated them and others hoping to profit financially. Jon’s supporters said the accusers’ testimony did not seem credible. “I can’t believe that I was in the same courtroom” as the jury, said Richard Bernard, Jon’s brother-in-law. Jon did not testify.

... contd.