Former Abercrombie CEO Mike Jeffries is arrested in federal sex trafficking case

Mike Jeffries, who led Abercrombie & Fitch Co. for more than 20 years, is under arrest as part of a federal investigation into a sex trafficking and interstate prostitution case. His arrest comes one year after bombshell allegations emerged in which eight men accused Jeffries and his inner circle of sexually exploiting them at lavish parties around the world.

The case is being handled by the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, which will hold a news conference at noon ET along with the FBI and the New York Police Department's Special Victims Unit.

Jeffries, who abruptly resigned from Abercrombie 10 years ago, was placed under arrest in West Palm Beach, Fla., where he’ll make an initial court appearance on Tuesday. He will later be brought to New York for an arraignment.

Also under arrest in the case: Matthew Smith, Jeffries’ longtime partner, who allegedly attended the parties with Jeffries; and James Jacobson, who allegedly recruited victims and acted as a middleman in arranging sex events.

Several of the men who made allegations against Jeffries were male models, as NPR reported last October. They described a dynamic in which money and the potential to gain a legitimate job were used as leverage to get them to perform sex acts at events and at Jeffries' then-home in the Hamptons.

"This experience, I think it broke me," one man told the BBC, which first reported the allegations. "I think that this stole any ounce of innocence that I had left. It mentally messed me up. But with the language I now have today, I can sit here and tell you that I was taken advantage of."

During his long tenure at A&F, Jeffries took the clothing brand to new heights. But he was also at the center of several controversies. In 2003, Black, Latino and Asian American employees filed a class action lawsuit accusing the company of sidelining them (it was later settled). Accusations also arose that the A&F magazine catalog had become a corporatized example of soft-core porn.
Jeffries' sudden departure in 2014 came after a prolong sales slump for Abercrombie, as well as a string of splashy moves that didn't pan out for the company.