Mike Jeffries, the former CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch, has been arrested on charges related to sex trafficking.
The indictment alleges that between December 2008 and March 2015, Jeffries and two other associates engaged in a ‘sex trafficking scheme’ in which they would recruit men with model aspirations, a source said.
A second source says they allegedly would also engage in sex-themed parties at which these prospective models were given drugs, alcohol and Viagra to perform sex acts.
One defendant, James Jacobson, 71, was employed to recruit men “to perform commercial sex acts” for Jeffries and the 61-year-old Smith, according to a graphic, 16-count indictment in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
It alleges that they organized “sex events” in England, France, Italy, Morocco, St. Barts and New York for Jeffries, Smith and “others.” They “employed coercive, fraudulent and deceptive tactics in connection with the recruitment, hiring, transportation, obtaining, maintaining, solicitation and payment of the men to engage in commercial sex.”
“Many of the victims, at least one of whom was as young as 19 years old, were financially vulnerable and aspired to become models in the fashion industry, a notoriously cut-throat world,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing.