Ex-Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries free on $10M bond appears in court in sex-trafficking case
Former Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries emerged on Long Island Friday — sporting an ankle bracelet tucked into his sock — days after he and two others were charged in a bombshell sex-trafficking case involving young male models.Jeffries, 80, who’s free on $10 million bond, walked into Central Islip federal court wearing a suit, a white shirt and a GPS ankle tracker around 11:45 a.m., ahead of his 3 p.m.arraignment.
The disgraced fashion boss — who left the clothing company in 2014 after 22 years — is expected to enter a plea before Magistrate Judge Steven Tiscione to 16 counts of sex trafficking and prostitution.Jeffries is charged alongside his romantic partner Matthew Smith, 61, and alleged middleman, James Jacobson, 71, of luring at least 15 young male aspiring models to sex parties around the world where Jeffries and Smith sexually abused them, prosecutors allege.Jacobson — who is also expected to enter a plea Friday — is accused of recruiting the young men with the promise to help boost their modeling careers or even get them jobs as A&F models, the feds claim.The middleman would have the targets first perform sex acts on him to test them out for Jeffries and Smith’s sick plans and then Smith would have to approve the candidates that Jacobson referred to him, court papers allege.The victims — who were as young as 19 — were often subjected to painful penis injections to induce erections and they endured the insertion of large objects in their anuses and high-pressured enemas delivered using a hose, prosecutors allege.The men were given drugs and lubricant and had their genitals shaved by Jeffries and others to prep them for the so-called “sex events” that took place at Jeffries’ homes in Manhattan and in the Hamptons and in hotels around the world, the feds claim.Jeffries and Smith poured millions of dollars into running the sex-trafficking and prostitution operation that took place from at least 2008 through 2015, court p...