Indian raped aspiring lingerie model, Australian court told

SYDNEY - An Indian national raped an aspiring lingerie model after he set up a fake social networking profile and promised to help her, a court was informed in this Australian city Monday.

Paul Rajendran used a bogus MySpace profile to arrange a meeting with the 23-year-old woman in early March 2009. Rajendran then raped her in a nearby office block, prosecutors have alleged.

They had exchanged a string of emails in which Rajendran falsely claimed he worked for the lingerie firm La Perla.

On the day of the incident, they consumed several drinks at a bar and discussed the possibility of her modelling for the company, prosecutor Eric Balodis told jurors at the start of Rajendran’s trial in Sydney Monday.

Then they moved to an office block in Hunter Street where Rajendran laid out La Perla pictures on a desk.

“She was sitting on a chair in front of the desk. The accused came over and sat by her and kissed her,” AAP quoted Balodis as saying.

“She said ‘I didn’t come here for that’.”

“At this stage she was so intoxicated, so drunk and so scared she was crying.”

Rajendran then knelt between her legs and had sexual intercourse with the woman, the media report said.

“He told her later: “I’ll make you into a really good model if you don’t tell anyone,” Balodis stated.

The model then walked to the Royal George pub where the police were called.

Rajendran also faces actual bodily harm charges relating to abrasions said to have been found on the woman’s back after the attack.

Police have issued a warning to aspiring models not to use the Internet to get a start in the modelling industry.

Rajendran’s lawyer told jurors the sex was consensual and that at no stage did he force the alleged victim to do anything against her will.