Kimora Lee Simmons

Kimora Lee Simmons (née Perkins; born May 4, 1975) is an American former fashion model and fashion designer. She took over Baby Phat after Russell Simmons and was CEO/Creative Director through 2010.

Early life

Simmons was born in St. Louis, Missouri. Her Japanese/Korean mother, Joanne Perkins, was adopted by an American serviceman during the Korean War and raised in the USA. She later worked as an administrator for Social Security. Kimora's father, Vernon Whitlock Jr., is African American, and worked as a Federal Marshal, an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission investigator, a bail bondsman, and later became a barber in St. Louis. Withlock was released after five years, but could have been released on parole after 3 years under the old sentencing guild lines, in prison on a 24-year sentence to which he pled guilty and consequently was put under 10 years of parole and a substantially high fine . It was substantiated in the U.S. District Court (Honorable Clyde Cahill) that government agents attempted to recruit Withlock as an informant in exchange for probation, but he vehemently refused. Consequently, he was refused probation and was taken off his $500,000 bond and was given the 24-year sentence. The proceedings regarding Withlock's case can be found in the minutes of the U.S. District Court or the U.S. Clerks office in the Eastern District of Missouri by U.S. Judge Clyde Cahill, 1984. He was sentenced to prison when Kimora was in grade school for distribution of narcotics. Her parents split up and she was raised by her mother.