Court sees video of Max Factor heir having sex with unconscious teenager

A court has been played a videotape showing the millionaire heir to the Max Factor cosmetics empire having sex with an unconscious teenager, who prosecutors claim was drugged and raped.

Andrew Luster, 37, the great-grandson of Max Factor, was shown speaking to the camera, at one point saying: "That's exactly what I like ­ a passed-out, beautiful girl." Later, to a soundtrack of rock music, he adds: "The most perfect gifts, I think, are a perfect surf and a beautiful blond girl, passed out on your bed, waiting for anything."

The tape was played before a court in Los Angeles, California, on Wednesday, as part of a pre-trial hearing to determine whether Mr Luster should face 88 sex charges that could lead to a sentence of more than 1,000 years in prison.

Prosecutors claim that Mr Luster, estimated to be worth $30m, used the drug gamma hydroxybutrate, or GHB, to knock out three women he then allegedly sexually assaulted. There are allegations that Mr Luster assaulted a British woman at a hotel in London, also using the drug.

The deputy district attorney, John Blair, told the court in Ventura County: "We have almost 60 minutes of images on videotape of the defendant sexually assaulting women."

Mr Luster's lawyers admit that their client had sex with the women, but claimed they all consented. They have argued that the women agreed to take GHB, which the lawyers said had a reputation as an aphrodisiac.

Joel Iassacson, one of Mr Luster's three lawyers, said: "Certainly, there were sexual relations that occurred, but this was a mutual lifestyle type of event. There was no lack of consent. No void area where people couldn't give consent." But the woman shown on the videotape, then aged 17 and now 21, tearfully watched the recording. "I am angry and disgusted. I can't believe that someone would do that," said the woman, identified only as "Shawna Doe". She said that she had initially met Mr Luster a year before the alleged attack, while on a beach with a friend. While she had "made out" with him, she did not have sex because she was concerned about their age difference, she said.

She met him again a year later, meeting him at his house for a drink. She said she soon felt dizzy and lay down on his bed, waking up at around midnight. She said she did not know any sexual activity had happened until detectives contacted her last year as part of their wider investigation.

David Smith, an expert in addictive medicine at the University of San Francisco, told the court that on the video the woman was "like an anaesthitised patient on an operating table".

The hearing is expected to last four days, when Judge James Cloninger will decide whether to order a full trial.