Former Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries and an alleged confederate pleaded not responsible on Friday to intercourse trafficking and interstate prostitution fees.
Jeffries and James Jacobson entered their pleas throughout a short look on the federal courthouse in Central Islip, New York.
Entering the courtroom, Jeffries didn’t acknowledge Jacobson and let his lawyer, Brian H. Bieber, do the speaking for him.
“We plead not responsible, your honor,” Bieber mentioned.
Jeffries stays free on the $10 million bond he posted at his first court docket look Tuesday in West Palm Beach, Florida. But he has needed to give up his passport and stay confined at his houses in Florida, New York City or Long Island and is topic to GPS monitoring.
Jacobson’s bond was set at $500,000 and he was ordered to not go away Rice Lake, Wisconsin, the place he lives. He too is topic to GPS monitoring.
Jeffries’ romantic associate, Matthew Smith, who was additionally arrested on Tuesday on intercourse trafficking fees, wasn’t on the arraignment. Smith, who’s a citizen of the U.Ok., stays behind bars in West Palm Beach whereas bail preparations are being negotiated and has, to this point, not been given a court docket date, in accordance with a spokesperson for the Eastern District of New York.
Jeffries, Smith and Jacobson have every been hit with a single rely of intercourse trafficking, in addition to 15 counts of interstate prostitution tied to fifteen alleged victims. All three are barred from having any contact with one another.
Bieber mentioned Tuesday in a press release in response to Jeffries’ arrest: “We will reply intimately to the allegations after the Indictment is unsealed, and when applicable, however plan to take action within the courthouse — not the media.”
The trio, a federal indictment alleges, operated an “worldwide intercourse trafficking and prostitution enterprise” from 2008 to 2015.
They organized “intercourse occasions” in England, France, Italy, Morocco, St. Barts, New York City and the Hamptons for Jeffries, Smith and “others,” in accordance with the indictment.
They “employed coercive, fraudulent and misleading ways in reference to the recruitment, hiring, transportation, acquiring, sustaining, solicitation and fee of the boys to interact in industrial intercourse,” it says.
The male recruits, most of them aspiring fashions, had been led to consider “that not complying with requests for sure acts through the Sex Events might hurt their careers,” the indictment alleges.
“Many of the victims, at the very least one in all whom was as younger as 19 years outdated, had been financially weak and aspired to change into fashions within the vogue business, a notoriously cutthroat world,” prosecutors mentioned in a memo to the court docket. “Indeed, a few of the males they recruited had beforehand labored at Abercrombie shops or modeled for Abercrombie.”
Jeffries, Smith and Jacobson are additionally alleged to have paid sure family employees members to “facilitate and supervise the intercourse occasions” by, amongst different issues, ensuring the younger males surrendered their wallets and cellphones.
These staffers, the indictment says, additionally offered Jeffries, Smith and the boys who attended with alcohol, muscle relaxants generally known as “poppers,” lubricant, Viagra and condoms, amongst different objects.
Afterward, it was both Jacobson or the employees members who paid the boys for attending the intercourse occasions, it says.
The trio additionally employed a “full-service safety firm” to manage nondisclosure agreements, conduct background checks and, if mandatory, intimidate victims, prosecutors alleged of their detention memo.
“On events when witnesses threatened to reveal or sue them, Jeffries and Smith relied on the providers of a safety firm to surveil and intimidate these people, thereby securing their silence,” the memo reads.
The trio used burner telephones for communication, the memo alleges.
Breon Peace, the U.S. legal professional for the Eastern District of New York, mentioned at a information convention on Tuesday that Jeffries and Smith spent thousands and thousands on the intercourse trafficking enterprise, utilizing the cash to pay their staffers and purchase their silence.
Some of the victims, the detention memo says, had been additionally paid straight in money that amounted to “a whole lot of 1000’s of {dollars}.”
Peace mentioned the operation used a referral system and interview course of, throughout which the boys who had been allegedly preyed upon had been saved at the hours of darkness concerning the particulars of the intercourse occasions earlier than they attended.
During “tryouts” of potential members, Jacobson usually had candidates first have interaction in industrial intercourse acts with him, the indictment says.
Later, on the intercourse occasions, Jeffries and Smith had employees members inject some victims with “a prescription-grade erection-inducing substance for the aim of inflicting the boys to interact in intercourse acts by which they had been in any other case bodily incapable or unwilling,” the detention memo alleges.
“On multiple event when males didn’t or couldn’t consent, Jeffries and Smith violated the bodily integrity of those males by subjecting them or persevering with to topic them to invasive sexual and violent contact by physique components and different objects,” Peace mentioned.
Prosecutors mentioned they’ve “dozens of witnesses” who could testify, in accordance with the doc.
Federal investigators acquired wind of what Jeffries and the others had been allegedly doing via media stories.
The BBC printed an explosive report a yr in the past that mentioned Jeffries had been accused of exploiting males at intercourse events he hosted. The report mentioned that 12 males described having attended or organized occasions that included intercourse acts for Jeffries and his associate, Smith, and that these occasions occurred from 2009 to 2015. Some of the boys who spoke to the BBC mentioned they had been exploited or didn’t take part willingly.
Bieber advised NBC News on the time that Jeffries wouldn’t touch upon stories about his private life. But Abercrombie & Fitch mentioned it was “appalled and disgusted” by the allegations within the BBC report.
Jeffries was the controversial CEO of Abercrombie from 1992 to 2014, throughout which period the favored clothes posted 10-digit annual earnings. But the corporate was additionally hit by harsh criticism for its use of principally white fashions and for promoting T-shirts that had been deemed racist. The firm additionally confronted a number of discrimination lawsuits throughout Jeffries’ reign.
Shortly after the BBC report, each Abercrombie & Fitch and Jeffries had been sued over allegations they turned a blind eye to the allegations. That civil go well with, which data present stays unresolved, alleged Jeffries sexually abused quite a few males after having lured them with the promise of coveted modeling contracts, CNBC reported.