Mike Jeffries, who led Abercrombie & Fitch Co. for more than 20 years, has been arrested as part of a federal investigation into sex trafficking and interstate prostitution. His arrest comes a year after eight people accused Jeffries and people close to him of sexually abusing them at lavish parties around the world.
The case is being handled by the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, who will hold a news conference with the FBI and the New York Police Department’s Special Victims Unit at 12 p.m. ET.
Jeffries, who abruptly resigned from Abercrombie 10 years ago, was arrested in West Palm Beach, Florida, where he will make his first court appearance Tuesday. He will be brought to New York for arraignment later.
Others arrested in the case: Jeffries’ longtime partner Matthew Smith, who allegedly attended the parties with Jeffries; and James Jacobson, who allegedly recruited victims and acted as a middleman in arranging the sex events.
Several of the men making allegations against Jeffries were male models, as NPR reported last October. They described a dynamic in which money and the ability to get legitimate jobs were used to coerce them into having sex at events and at Jeffries’ then-home in the Hamptons.
“I think this experience broke me,” one man told the BBC, which first reported the allegations. “I think it also took away any remaining innocence I had. It left me mentally disturbed. But with the language I have today, I can sit here and tell you 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 numerous controversies. In 2003, black, Latino, and Asian American employees filed a class action lawsuit (later settled) accusing the company of marginalizing them. It was also alleged that the A&F magazine catalog had become a corporatized example of soft-core porn. Jeffries’ abrupt departure in 2014 came after a prolonged sales decline for Abercrombie, as well as a number of blatant moves that did not work out for the company.