In 2012, she sued Internet Brands for $10 million in California for "failure to warn." The people who ran the site knew that a rapist was actively prowling it for victims and hadn't warned users. Internet Brands responded by saying that the Waitts brothers had not disclosed during the purchase that there was an ongoing criminal investigation into visitor, Lavont Flanders, that might expose it to civil suits. In 2010, the brothers Donald and Tyler Waitt sued Internet Brands for not paying up. He helped her file a lawsuit against Internet Brands, a company that had purchased from two brothers in 2008 for nearly a million dollars. Still, it's disturbing this Internet-documented scheme went on for 5 years before the men were convicted.ĭoe contacted Jeff Herman, a Miami lawyer who was representing another victim who was trying to get the videos the men made of her taken off of porn sites. Doe thinks some women may not have realized they'd been raped until they saw the video evidence, due to being roofied. "But then I realized it happened to more and more women." Flanders and Callum had allegedly been using the site to lure victims to Miami since 2006. "I thought at first it was just me," said Doe. A year after assaulting her, the two were sentenced to life in prison. The FBI flew Doe back to Miami to testify at the sentencing hearing. The men were Emerson Callum, a porn star, and Lavont Flanders Jr., 41, a former employee of the Miami police department and the Department of Homeland Security, who would pose as the female model who reached out to the women initially. Three months later, the FBI called and said that the two men who had raped her had done the same thing to other women, inviting would-be models to Miami, drugging them, and assaulting them, all on film, many of which they sold. She immediately deleted her profile and gave up on modeling. Doe visited a rape center, and when the examiner exposed Doe's body to a black light, she began to understand what had happened while she was blacked out. And he told me to call the cops," says Doe. He told her she'd bitten her lip the night before eating a burger. Eric called her, saying he wanted to do another shoot at the beach. "I went into the bathroom and looked in the the mirror and my face and lips were busted," she says. Her room was a mess, her things strewn about. When she woke up the next day, she was disoriented. I just remember holding up my id and saying I’m not under any pressure to do what I’m going to do." "I remember saying lines, sitting in the living room and saying lines.
There were date rape drugs in the alcohol Eric had given her. Eric told her they were going to shoot a love scene for the commercial next and that he had to pick up his partner. When she got back into the car, she was feeling woozy. Each time, she had to say her lines while drinking the beverages. First it was Smirnoff wine coolers, then brandy. The commercials were for alcoholic beverages. If warning bells are going off in your head at this point, you have a good internal alarm system.Īfter Doe got to her hotel and showered, Eric picked her up and drove her to a Kinko's to make a copy of her i.d., to a studio where he dropped off her portfolio, and then told her he wanted to see "how you work under pressure." It was a windy night and he wanted to see if she could fight the elements to film commercials. So that February, she got to Miami and headed to a hotel Eric had recommended, near the airport. She had to book her own flight and hotel, but the opportunity was worth it to her. He gave her the details about the shoot, what the agency was looking for, and suggested she get down to Miami right away. She then passed Doe's number along to "her agent," who promptly called Doe, saying his name was Eric. The woman said that an Austrian modeling agency was doing a big casting call in Miami and that Doe should check it out, suggesting that it might lead to a $200,000 contract with a $50,000 signing bonus. In January 2011, she got an email from another model who said she'd seen Doe on and liked her look. She struggled but her mother and her boyfriend helped to support her while she pursued modeling jobs. She sold her car and all of her belongings and moved to New York. In the summer of 2010, she decided she was going to get serious about becoming a model. "It was the key to starting my modeling career," she says.
#MODELMAYHEM MODELS PROFESSIONAL#
In 2008, when she was 19, she created a profile on a site called through which she started meeting professional photographers. Growing up in Houston, she would go to casting calls and even did a local modeling show. Jane Doe* wanted to be a model since childhood.