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, have been taken into custody on suspicion of sex 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 beneath home detention with GPS monitoring, prohibited from travelling with out permission, and has to show in his passport, based on 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.
Legal professionals for each Jeffries and Smith – who’s the previous’s associate – have mentioned the 2 males “vehemently deny” any wrongdoing.
Jacobson and Jeffries have been anticipated to look for arraignment on Friday, October 25, in federal courtroom in Islip. Along with 15 counts of interstate prostitution related 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 sequence of get together provide shops.
He attended Claremont Males’s Faculty and the London College of Economics, earlier than working in numerous roles at a number of department 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 Nineteen 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 said: “We rent handsome individuals in our shops. As a result of handsome individuals appeal to different handsome individuals, and we need to market to chill, handsome individuals. We do not market to anybody apart from that.”
He added that: “These firms which are in bother try to focus on everyone: younger, previous, fats, skinny. However then you definitely develop into completely vanilla. You do not alienate anyone, however you do not excite anyone, both.”
The corporate attracted different varieties of controversy.
A category motion grievance was introduced in opposition to the company in 2003 by Black, Asian American, and Latino staff who claimed the corporate prohibited minority applicants from applying.
What are the allegations made in opposition to 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 techniques in reference to the recruitment, hiring, transportation, acquiring, sustaining, solicitation and fee of the lads to have interaction in business intercourse,” it says.
In keeping with the indictment, the lads who attended the gatherings have been misled into considering doing so might result in modelling alternatives – and that “not complying with requests for sure acts throughout the intercourse occasions might hurt their careers”.
The youngest of the alleged victims was 19, prosecutors advised the courtroom in an announcement on Tuesday.
“Certainly, among the males they recruited had beforehand labored at Abercrombie shops or modelled for Abercrombie,” they mentioned.
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 with a purpose 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.
