Hilariously, Elite Model Management president, Gerald Marie, dismissed the arrest as an "epiphenomenon", claiming that although he is "surprised" by the incident, Hennet is not involved in the day-to-day running of the agency.
Oh yes, that's right, Hennet only heads up Elite's high profile international scouting event, the Elite Model Look contest, which involves a large number of young teenage hopefuls.
A spokesman for Elite World is quoted as saying that the Hennet debacle, “is an isolated case."
Well, isolated to this decade, is what he meant to say presumably.
In 1999, Elite Model Management - then the world's biggest model agency (a title that has since been usurped by IMG Models) - found itself at the epicentre of the modelling industry’s biggest scandal, after a current affairs team from the BBC led by Donal MacIntyre conducted an undercover investigation into the Milan modelling scene.
The exposé, which sent shockwaves through the industry, revealed that girls as young as 13 were being pressured into sex and drugs by those in trust, with one model booker from the Marilyn agency admitting that she supplied cocaine to models.
The actions of the Elite agency were particularly damaging.
Elite executives were overheard calling black models "*******" and making racist jokes, whilst Gerald Marie, who was at the time the president of Elite Europe, propositioned an undercover female reporter who was posing as a model – and boasted on camera that he planned to seduce the Elite Model Look finalists, whose average age was 15.
Needless to say, many may well be surprised to hear that Marie even still has a job at Elite, let alone a senior position at the company - having stepped down in disgrace in the wake of the 1999 scandal.
The news follows almost a year to the day that the head of the UN's Office on Drugs and Crime, Antonio Maria Costa, slammed "coke- snorting fashionistas" such as Amy Winehouse, Kate Moss and Pete Doherty, for glamorising drug use.
All three celebrities have strong connections to the fashion industry in the various capacities of paid model, booked entertainer and/or designer muse.
Needless to say, it promises to be a fun week.
