Michael Jeffries, former CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch, leaves following a listening to on the Paul G. Rogers Federal Constructing and U.S. Courthouse, in West Palm Seaside, Florida, on Oct. 22, 2024.
Rebecca Blackwell | AP
Former Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries and his affiliate will plead not responsible Friday to federal prison costs of sexually exploiting dozens of males, a lot of whom sought to be fashions for the clothes model.
Jeffries, 80, and James Jacobson, 71, are set to be arraigned in U.S. District Court docket in Lengthy Island, New York, three days after being arrested on intercourse trafficking and interstate prostitution costs.
Attorneys for each males confirmed to CNBC earlier Friday that their purchasers would enter not-guilty pleas.
The graphic 16-count indictment unsealed Tuesday accuses Jeffries and his romantic accomplice Matthew Smith, 61, of working a world intercourse trafficking enterprise over greater than six years, most of which overlapped with Jeffries’ tenure as CEO of Abercrombie.
Jacobson allegedly labored as a recruiter for the “Intercourse Occasions,” and would allegedly require potential candidates to take part in “tryouts” with him.
The defendants allegedly used “coercive, fraudulent and misleading” recruiting ways, together with by main males “to consider that attending the Intercourse Occasions may yield modeling alternatives with Abercrombie or in any other case profit their careers,” the indictment says.
If convicted, Jeffries and Jacobson face a most sentence of life in jail on the intercourse trafficking cost alone, and a compulsory minimal of 15 years behind bars. They may additionally obtain as a lot as 20 years behind bars if convicted on all 15 counts of interstate prostitution.
Smith was additionally arrested Tuesday and faces the identical costs. He and Jeffries had been each arrested in Florida, whereas Jacobson was arrested in Wisconsin, the place he lives.
A federal Justice of the Peace decide launched Jeffries on a $10 million bond, plus residence confinement and site monitoring situations, at his preliminary courtroom look in West Palm Seaside on Tuesday afternoon.
Smith was ordered to be held in custody pending his arraignment at a later date as a result of as a citizen of the U.Ok., he poses a larger flight threat.
Jacobson was launched on a $500,000 bond after showing in federal courtroom in St. Paul, Minnesota, on Tuesday afternoon.
That is breaking information. Please test again for updates.
