Paroled Owner of Hollywood Modeling Studio Is Arrested, Faces Rape Charge

The owner of a Hollywood modeling studio was arrested for investigation of rape Wednesday after an aspiring model claimed she was photographed in designer fashions, and then forced onto a couch and sexually assaulted.

Los Angeles police said Ross Washington, 55, owner of Starmaker International and producer of the “Miss West Coast Beauty Pageant,” was arrested at his posh offices on Sunset Boulevard while on parole from a 1981 rape conviction involving a would-be actress.

Investigators said they are trying to learn whether Washington engaged in a pattern of enticing beautiful women to his modeling enterprises and sexually assaulting them.

“We have investigated three similar complaints against Mr. Washington in the past year and a half,” Hollywood Division Detective David Lambkin said. “But this is the first time we have filed charges.”

One of those complaints also involved rape allegations, Lambkin said. The others involved misdemeanor complaints with “sexual overtones,” he said.

Washington is to be arraigned today on one count of rape, two counts of rape with a foreign object and one count of attempted oral copulation, police said.

The charges were brought by a 29-year-old Laguna Beach woman who answered a newspaper advertisement and posed at Washington’s studios Jan. 14.

Police said Washington was released from state prison in early 1986 after serving about five years of an eight-year sentence for raping a Los Angeles-area woman who believed he was a film casting director. In that case, the victim accompanied Washington to a studio believing she was to try out for a film role, Lambkin said.

After his release on parole, however, Washington built an apparently profitable business empire. His 12th-floor offices in Hollywood served as headquarters for several enterprises, including Starmaker International, Ross Washington’s Productions, Hollywood Career Center and Ross Elite Model Management.

Police described the suite as a “beautiful” layout of modern furnishings and mirrored walls.

“He does do legitimate business out of this office,” Lambkin said. “This isn’t a front.”

Washington apparently referred some clients to a legitimate employment agency to earn finder’s fees that kept those offices running, according to Deputy Dist. Atty. Stephen Sitkoff of the Sexual Crimes Unit.