The owner of a foot fetish company was arrested in New York City on Monday in connection with sex trafficking charges.
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Jason Khan, who owns FootPadNYC.com resides in New York City and Albany, New York, was charged with three counts of sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion, federal and local authorities announced on Monday.
“This horrific behavior has no place in our city, and we will not allow predators to prey on vulnerable women,” New York Police Department Police Commissioner Jessica S. Tisch said in a statement. “The NYPD will always protect survivors of sexual assault and work to stop the deception, exploitation, and abuse of traffickers.”
An attorney for Khan, 47, did not immediately return a request for comment.
From at least 2019 to 2021, Khan lured his victims to New York hotel rooms with the promise of hiring them to model their feet, according to a federal indictment. Once the women showed up to the hotel rooms to apply for professional opportunity, Khan raped or sexually assaulted them, according to the indictment.
Prosecutors allege that Khan vaginally penetrated two of his victims and forcibly put a third victim’s feet on his penis. Each of the victim expressed their lack of consent to the sexual activity, which Khan ignored, the indictment states.
All three of the victims reported the crimes to authorities, and two of the victims performed rape kits in a hospital in the aftermaths of their rapes, prosecutors said.
“We commend the victims for their courage in coming forward, and we urge anyone else who has been a victim of Khan, or knows anything about his alleged crimes, to do the same,” said U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton. “Our investigation is ongoing.”
Nicholas Biase, a spokesperson for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement that “the investigation has revealed that Jason Kahn, also a resident of Albany, New York, may have victimized additional women in the Albany area.”
He urged “anyone who may have been victimized by Khan in any way, or have any additional information about his alleged illegal behavior” to call the FBI or fill out an FBI questionnaire dedicated to the case.
The indictment also calls for Khan to forfeit “any and all property, real and personal, involved in, used, or intended to be used to commit or to facilitate the commission of said offenses.”
If convicted on any of the counts, Khan faces a maximum sentence of life in prison and a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in prison.