More Teen Models Sue Butt Groping "Christian" Agent
March 25, 2012, 10 a.m.
Two more models have sued Aristeo Tengco for continually groping them while preaching the Bible: "When we'd hug, it was very sexual. He'd run his hands down my back and grab my butt."
Aristeo Tengco, flanked by two models
Aspiring teen models from rural America: run for the hills if your prospective agent claims he's a good Christian who will help you grow your faith, and then invites you to pay to live in his pseudo-harem with other teen models. Unless his name is Tim Tebow, of course. Two more models have sued Aristeo Tengco, who runs Emmanuel New York Models, for continually groping them while preaching the Bible. “He controlled everything I wore. He controlled every aspect of my life,” 17-year-old Jessica Lee told the News. “And there was the groping. When we’d hug, it was very sexual. He’d run his hands down my back and grab my butt.”
Like Hayden Holt, who filed her lawsuit against Tengco a little over a week ago, Lee and 17-year-old Kayla Hill say Tengco seduced them and their parents into trusting him with his talk of being a good Christian, then made them pay to live in his apartment-turned-model boarding house while controlling their lives and withholding their modeling money. “He fed me a lot of speeches about Christianity and how he was really going to help me grow in my faith,” Lee said.
Both girls moved into Tengco's apartment in December, after Holt and a 15-year-old girl had already bolted due to “working and living under relentless and severe and pervasive sex-based hostility and fear." The models’ parents estimated they each paid Tengco about $6,000 for lodging, food, coaching and clothes: “In the name of Jesus, he’s taking advantage of young girls and taking away a part of their innocence,” said Lee’s mom, Pamela Thrasher.
Tengco's lawyer Kenneth Rubinstein told the News this is just another extortion ploy: “If these other women are joining what we think is a frivolous lawsuit, that’s obviously up to them, but we’ll have to see what they say and evaluate it independently,” Rubinstein said. Hill said she doesn't want this happening to another girl: “He would just always have to have his hands on me. I think he’s disgusting. I hate him. I want him to rot in hell.”
