Jeffries was taken into custody in Florida’s West Palm Seaside. As well as, two associates, James Jacobson of Wisconsin and Matthew Smith of West Palm Seaside, had been taken into custody on suspicion of intercourse trafficking.
Jeffries and Smith then made their first courtroom appearances in West Palm Seaside on Tuesday.
Later that day, Jeffries was freed on a $10m (£7.7m) bond. He was positioned underneath home detention with GPS monitoring, prohibited from travelling with out permission, and has to show in his passport, in accordance with an order from US Justice of the Peace Decide Bruce E Reinhart.
Smith consented to custody in the identical courthouse till the case is heard in New York state.
Attorneys for each Jeffries and Smith – who’s the previous’s accomplice – have stated the 2 males “vehemently deny” any wrongdoing.
Jacobson and Jeffries had been anticipated to seem for arraignment on Friday, October 25, in federal courtroom in Islip. Along with 15 counts of interstate prostitution linked to fifteen alleged victims, Jeffries, Smith, and Jacobson are every going through one depend of intercourse trafficking.
Jeffries is an American businessman who was chairman and CEO of clothes retailer Abercrombie & Fitch from 1992 to 2014.
Born and raised in Los Angeles, he’s the son of Donald R Jeffries, who owned a series of occasion provide shops.
He attended Claremont Males’s Faculty and the London College of Economics, earlier than working in several roles at a number of shops together with Abraham & Straus, Alcott & Andrews, and Paul Harris.
He radically altered the corporate’s emphasis, picture, and model throughout that point, leading to a considerably contentious however extremely profitable turnaround within the Nineties and early 2000s.
He resigned in 2014 following a run of subpar outcomes from the 2007–2008 monetary disaster onwards, together with criticism of the model he created.
Jeffries was an opinionated businessman who made controversial public statements.
On one event, he stated: “We rent handsome folks in our shops. As a result of handsome folks entice different handsome folks, and we wish to market to chill, handsome folks. We do not market to anybody aside from that.”
He added that: “These corporations which can be in hassle are attempting to focus on all people: younger, previous, fats, skinny. However you then grow to be completely vanilla. You do not alienate anyone, however you do not excite anyone, both.”
The corporate attracted different forms of controversy.
A category motion criticism was introduced towards the company in 2003 by Black, Asian American, and Latino staff who claimed the corporate prohibited minority candidates from making use of.
What are the allegations made towards Jeffries?
In keeping with a federal indictment, Jeffries, Smith and Jacobson, a recruiter, ran an “worldwide sex-trafficking and prostitution enterprise” between 2008 and 2015.
They “employed coercive, fraudulent and misleading ways in reference to the recruitment, hiring, transportation, acquiring, sustaining, solicitation and fee of the lads to have interaction in industrial intercourse,” it says.
In keeping with the indictment, the lads who attended the gatherings had been misled into pondering doing so may result in modelling alternatives – and that “not complying with requests for sure acts in the course of the intercourse occasions may hurt their careers”.
The youngest of the alleged victims was 19, prosecutors advised the courtroom in an announcement on Tuesday.
“Certainly, a few of the males they recruited had beforehand labored at Abercrombie shops or modelled for Abercrombie,” they stated.
Prosecutors say the lads had to surrender their telephones and wallets and signal nondisclosure agreements.
Moreover, it’s claimed that Jeffries, Smith and Jacobson sought out, employed, and compensated a choose group of home staff so as to “facilitate and supervise the intercourse occasions”.
The indictment claims the workers members provided Jeffries, Smith, and the lads who attended with lubrication, alcohol, condoms and Viagra, amongst different issues. It claims both Jacobson or the workers compensated the lads for going to the intercourse occasions.
Abercrombie & Fitch has been approached for remark.
