The head of a New York modeling agency is a real beast to his beauties, court papers charge.
In papers filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, aspiring model Hayden Holt, 19, said Emmanuel NY Models boss Aristeo Tengco repeatedly groped her and then withheld her payments after she fled his “modeling house.”
“Teenaged girls like Hayden, whose dream is to become a fashion model, need protection from predators like Mr. Tengco,” said her lawyer, Jack Tuckner.
The leggy North Carolina beauty signed a deal with Emmanuel after winning a modeling competition last July. She was told she had to stay at the agency’s “model house” — Tengco’s four-bedroom apartment on the Upper East Side, where she had to pay $900 a month in rent.
“I was getting jobs, modeling jobs — my dream, my passion, I love it — but I knew I was being treated wrong,” Holt told The Post. She’d had her fill of come-ons by November and left Tengco’s apartment, along with a 15-year-old, the suit says.
Emmanuel lawyer Ken Rubenstein said the claims are “wholly without merit.”