Sex video shown in trial of Max Factor heir

An heir to the Max Factor cosmetics fortune being tried on multiple rape charges faced an uphill battle yesterday to explain his behaviour after jurors watched video footage of him having sex with two women while they lay naked and apparently unconscious at his Californian beach house.

Andrew Luster, 39, is charged with 87 charges of rape, sodomy, sexual battery, drug possession and poisoning. He faces life imprisonment without parole if convicted on even a few of them. The prosecution says he sweet-talked at least three women into going with him to his house near Santa Barbara, administered the illegal sedative GHB and then had sex with them.

The mistake that led directly to his arrest was to videotape the sex sessions. In one tape, Maeve Fox said in her opening statement for the prosecution, Mr Luster can be heard saying his dream was "a strawberry blonde passed out on my bed ... ready for anything". GHB, known as liquid ecstasy, leaves victims with little or no recollection of what occurs. Ms Fox said Mr Luster gave GHB to his female guests "so he could ... violate them over and over again".

Mr Luster's lawyers were expected to argue that the sex was consensual, that the girls were pretending to be asleep and that the tapes were part of Mr Luster's plans to become a pornographic film producer.

In the pre-trial hearing, the defence was denied permission to show a tape in which one of the alleged victims has what appears to be consensual sex with him. And the court would not accept "prior consent" – in other words, the defence cannot argue the alleged victims knew what would happen before they lost consciousness.