(NewsNation) — Former Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries had a long history of problematic behavior both in and out of the boardroom before he was indicted on several sex trafficking charges Tuesday.
Jeffries, 80, who left Abercrombie in 2014, is best known for his tenure with the retail brand, which became a sensation in the late 1990s and 2000s before crashing under poor sales and a wave of controversies under the former CEO.
The former head, his partner Matthew Smith, 61, and their employee James Jacobson, 71, were arrested Tuesday on charges of luring men into sex parties, at times under the guise of modeling jobs for Abercrombie.
The three are charged with sex trafficking and interstate prostitution involving 15 unnamed accusers using Jeffries’ status, wealth and a private staff.
United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Breon Peace described the system as a “casting couch” model where men hoping to get featured in an Abercrombie ad were then trafficked.
Jeffries’ attorney, Brian Bieber, told The Associated Press that he would “respond in detail to the allegations after the indictment is unsealed, and when appropriate, but plan to do so in the courthouse — not the media.”
Who is Mike Jeffries?
Jeffries grew up in Los Angeles, where his father owned a chain of party supply stores before entering retail in the 1980s, reported Salon.
He became CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch in 1992 and immediately got to rebranding the company from a struggling retailer of hunting apparel to a seller of must-have teen clothing featuring what many called highly sexualized images of young models.
The brand would feature seminude models wearing tight clothing in an effort to appeal to what Jeffries has called “cool” kids.
“We hire good-looking people in our stores. Because good-looking people attract other good-looking people, and we want to market to cool, good-looking people,” Jeffries said about the brand. “We don’t market to anyone other than that.”
His vision scored with teens who saw the brand as aspirational in the 1990s and early 2000s, leading to a wave of Abercrombie stores opening across the globe.
By 2006, earnings had increased for 52 straight quarters, with annual profits topping $2 billion, NPR reported.
Jeffries earned about $25 million with a “stay bonus” of $6 million in 2004. Salon reported he had also catapulted himself into becoming one of the highest-paid CEOs of the time.
But the success fizzled out and sales slumped amid a slew of lawsuits and controversies surrounding the brand and Jeffries by the mid-2000s, reported The Wall Street Journal.
During the financial crisis in 2007, Jeffries refused to lower prices or offer discounts at Abercrombie stores despite dropping numbers.
While sales regained around 2011, the brand had lost relevance with teens who felt like the brand alienated many of them with its exclusionary messaging and now had a slew of new brands to turn to.
By the time Jeffries left in 2014, a hedge fund had pushed the company’s board to replace him because of the company’s lagging performance. Jeffries left with a retirement package valued at around $25 million, reported the BBC.
Controversies and lawsuits
Jeffries attracted a slew of controversies as CEO of Abercrombie through several insensitive remarks about his ideal customer base.
He was not shy in saying that the clothing was not meant to be inclusive.
“We want to market to cool, good-looking people,” he told Salon. “We don’t market to anyone other than that. Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong, and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.”
He added that companies that market to everyone, including “young, old, fat, skinny” people, “are totally vanilla.”
Jeffries also made comments regarding how scantily clad teens in the company’s ads, including one that was captioned “Group Sex,” were healthy, NPR reported.
“I think that what we represent sexually is healthy. It’s playful. It’s not dark. It’s not degrading,” he told Salon.
His comments garnered backlash from several groups, and his company’s policies were the subject of a number of lawsuits.
In 2003, Black, Latino and Asian American employees filed a class action lawsuit against the company, claiming that minority applicants were discouraged from applying or kept out of the public eye in undesirable positions, reported NPR. The company denied wrongdoing and later settled for $40 million.
In 2023, a former model for Abercrombie filed a civil suit against the fashion retailer and Jeffries, alleging it allowed the former CEO to run a sex trafficking organization during his 22-year tenure.
“Jeffries was so important to the profitability of the brand that he was given complete autonomy to perform his role as CEO however he saw fit, including through the use of blatant international sex trafficking and abuse of prospective Abercrombie models,” the suit filed by David Bradberry alleged.
At the time, an attorney for Jeffries told NPR that the former CEO had no comment on the accusations.
Who are the other two people indicted with Jeffries?
Jeffries’ romantic partner, Matthew Smith, and their employee, James Jacobson, were also implicated in Tuesday’s indictment.
According to the indictment, Smith and Jacobsen were employees of Jeffries’ corporation, the Jeffries Family Office, which was established to manage the former CEO’s personal income and assets.
Little is known about Smith, but he was the subject of alleged corporate misconduct by Jeffries after Abercrombie employees called out the former CEO for giving his partner an elevated role at the company despite not being an employee, Buzzfeed reported in 2013.
Smith had been involved in matters large and small, including serving as an enforcer for Jeffries’ rigid “Workstation Standards,” and had been given access to nonpublic documents for the company, the outlet reported.
Jeffries and Smith are accused of hiring Jacobson to act as a recruiter to select young men hoping to build a career in modeling who would then be coerced or forced to engage in sex acts at events run by Jeffries and Smith, according to the indictment.
Jacobson is also accused of assaulting some of the men he recruited.
He was arrested in Wisconsin, while Jeffries and Smith were arrested in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Jeffries and Jacobson will be arraigned Friday at the federal courthouse in Central Islip, Long Island, before U.S. Magistrate Judge Steven L. Tiscione.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.