MISTAKEN IDENTITY: A man accused of using fashion photographer David Bellemere’s social media identity to solicit models is due for a March 28 court appearance, according to Bellemere’s attorney Eric Morain.
Bellemere’s attorney, who has worked on similar cases with journalist Nadia Daam and porn actress Nikita Bellucci, said a plea bargain is the objective of the upcoming preliminary hearing. If the accused does not “recognize the crime” that he allegedly committed, then a second hearing will be scheduled that will be open to the public, the lawyer said. Twelve plaintiffs are involved — Bellemere and 11 models, whom Bellemere worked with in the past and Yann Labrosse allegedly propositioned trying to pass himself off as Bellemere, Morain said.
Bellemere claims that he learned Labrosse, a European model, was impersonating him online about 18 months ago and phoned him to ask him to stop. When that did not happen, Bellemere said he contacted the police in Lyons, France.
Labrosse did not respond to interview requests.
“He approached these girls pretending to be me. He was asking some models for videos and photography content, because he was pretending to do some casting. He said he needed some nude content very fast from them because he
Follow WWD on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook.
Read More…