Former Abercrombie & Fitch CEO arrested on federal sex trafficking charges

NEW YORK – Former Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Michael Jeffries and two other men have been arrested on sex trafficking and interstate prostitution charges, a spokesman for federal prosecutors said Tuesday.

Details of the criminal charges were not immediately available. They come after years of allegations of sexual misconduct made in civil lawsuits and in the media by young people who said Jeffries lured them with the promise of modeling work and then pressured them into sexual acts.

Jeffries' attorney, Brian Bieber, said via email that he “will respond to the allegations in detail after the indictment is unsealed and as necessary, but will do so at the courthouse and not in the media.”

Information about the other defendants' attorneys was not immediately available.

Brooklyn-based U.S. Attorney Breon Peace and FBI and police officials were scheduled to hold a news conference later Tuesday.

Jeffries became CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch in 1992 and left the company in 2014. The New Albany, Ohio-based company declined to comment on his arrest.

In a lawsuit filed last year in New York, Abercrombie was accused of allowing Jeffries to run a sex trafficking organization during his 22-year tenure. It said Jeffries had model scouts scour the Internet for victims and that some potential models had become victims of sex trafficking.

Abercrombie said last year it had hired an outside law firm to conduct an independent investigation after the BBC broadcast a report about similar allegations.

The BBC investigation included a dozen men who described taking part in events involving sexual acts that they said were orchestrated by Jeffries and his partner Matthew Smith, often at his home in New York and hotels in London , Paris and elsewhere.

When the lawsuit was filed in New York last year, Bieber declined to comment on the allegations.

Abercrombie & Fitch's roots go back to a hunting and outdoor goods store founded in 1892. By the time Jeffries arrived a century later, the brand was already a retail operation.

He was credited with making it a darling of millennial teen mall culture, known for its nouveau-preppy aesthetic — and some of the controversy surrounding it. Jeffries angered some customers by talking about how the company was targeting attractive children who would fit into its clothes.

After the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent recession, A&F's popularity began to wane again. When Jeffries left, a hedge fund had urged the company's board to replace him because the company was failing.

But the company has recovered in recent years.