Jon, 33, was charged with six felonies for the series of sexual assaults between October 2004 and March 5, according to a criminal complaint filed by the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office.

The California-based designer, who goes by the name Anand Jon, was arrested at his Beverly Hills apartment on March 6 after a woman alleged that he raped her.

“Subsequently, additional evidence led us to other victims,” said Mitch McCann, a spokesman for the Beverly Hills Police Department, which is investigating the case. The charges include rape and lewd acts on a child, among other counts.

Prosecutors have also charged a special circumstance allegation of multiple victims. If convicted, he faces a maximum of life in prison.

Jon’s defence attorney denied the allegations. “He absolutely contends he didn’t break any laws with respect to the contact he had with these women,” attorney Ronald Richards said.

Jon was being held in lieu of $1.3 million (Rs 5.8 crore) bail pending a March 19 hearing, Richards said. Richards said his client met one of his accusers online after she expressed interest in working with him.

“When you have people desperate to be in fashion, they get upset when you don’t place them where they want to be,” Richards said, adding that his client was involved with many different women.

“When you deal with a large number of women, you’re going to have potential false allegations made against you,” Richards said.

Jon launched his fashion line in 1999 after graduating from the Parsons School of Design in New York and was named a person to watch in 2007 by Newsweek magazine. He dressed the likes of Paris Hilton, Janet Jackson, Alanis Morisette and Bruce Springsteen, and partied in the elite New York circles.

This year, he was planning to launch his jeans label, Jeanisis, star in a reality TV show on VH1 and was also slated to act in a Gurinder Chadha film, where he would play an Indian designer.

For Jon’s friends and acquaintances, the case has come as a shock. “This is most shocking. I hope it is not true,” said fashion reviewer Bandana Tewari, a friend of Jon’s sister Sanjana.

“This was his time as he’d just stepped into the limelight,” says Mumbai-based designer Azeem Khan, whose brother, New York-based designer Naeem Khan, is a friend of Jon’s. “He just doesn’t seem the kind.”

A protégé of the late designer Gianni Versace, Jon’s work is a fusion of Indian motifs (gold embroidery and symbols of snakes and flowers) with Western sensibility (tight leather, flattering jeans). His long skirts and beaded gowns have been stocked at stores like Bergdorf Goodman and Henri Bendel.

“He is among the few Indians who was acknowledged in the commercial market in America,” says Sunil Sethi, buyer and CEO of Alliance Merchandising.

His debut at New York Fashion Week in 1999 paved the way for Indian designers like Ashish Soni and Sabyasachi Mukherjee. “His was the first Indo-American breakthrough. With him, they realised that fashion was happening in India. We were welcomed because of him,” says Soni.