Former Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries was arrested on Tuesday after a grand jury indicted him last week on charges that he ran a sex trafficking operation with his partner Matthew Smith for almost a decade between 2008 and 2015.
Jeffries and Smith’s “international sex trafficking and prostitution business” dangled Abercrombie & Fitch modeling opportunities in front of his alleged victims, according to the grand jury indictment, and the men allegedly hired a network of staff including contractors, security, and dedicated employees to run the operation and keep it secret.
The arrest is resurfacing persistent speculation about the connections between Leslie Wexner, an Ohio billionaire, the late billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, and Wexner’s fashion companies.
Les Wexner, the founder of clothing super-conglomerate The Limited, bought Abercrombie for $47 million in 1988 and hired Jeffries four years later.
A spokesperson for Wexner told the Daily Dot that because Abercrombie went public in 1996 and was an independent company by 1998, Wexner would never have been informed of any allegedly criminal behavior by Jeffries within the company.
Online, claims about Jeffries involvement with Wexner kicked off almost as soon as news about the arrest broke.
“Did you know Jeffrey Epstein financier Les Wexner purchased Abercrombie & Fitch in 1988?” posted @redneck on Truth Social, pointing to a summary of the relationship between Wexner and Jeffries.
“This old dude with too much filler is Mike Jeffries, former CEO of Abercrombie and Fitch. He was just arrested for sex trafficking,” added @TheRealRorbo over a shot of Jeffries. “Abercrombie & Fitch was owned by Les Wexner- Jeffrey Epstein’s financier. They’re all connected.”
Wexner has long denied any knowledge of Epstein's activities.
"I would never have guessed that a person I employed more than a decade ago could have caused such pain to so many people. My heart goes out to each and every person who has been hurt," he said in an email to staff in 2019.
“Wexner put full faith into Jeffries,” a civil lawsuit initially filed in 2023 that made sex trafficking allegations against Jeffries claimed. That suit said that the sex trafficking operation began well before 2005, and originated when Jeffries was hired in 1992 before being refined over the years.
That lawsuit described a relationship between Wexner and Jeffries where Wexner was cast as Jeffries’ mentor, claiming the company continued being “under the direction of Wexner and Jeffries” in 2003.
“While Jeffries was the CEO and in charge of Abercrombie’s methods for recruiting models and expanding the brand, Wexner was always his glorified boss and mentor, and the Abercrombie Ohio office maintained somewhat of a shrine to Wexner,” the complaint explained.
“The dominos are falling,” claimed @chicabonita2145 on Truth Social. “Jeffrey Epstein financed them. Les Wexner - Victoria's Secret CEO. Mike Jeffries - Abercrombie & Fitch CEO. Wait until you see who's next…”
In the mid-1990s, Epstein was a young money manager with one client: Leslie Wexner. Wexner gave Epstein power of attorney in 1991, meaning that he could sign checks in Wexner’s name, sell his property, and do pretty much anything Wexner could do with his money.
In 1998, Wexner sold Epstein his New York townhouse for $0.
Epstein spent a lot of time in Ohio back then and was also reportedly involved in Wexner’s handling of Abercrombie & Fitch.
In 1996, Vanity Fair reported Epstein flew to Columbus and told The Limited executives that he would decide the price Abercrombie & Fitch would sell at when it went public as its own, independent company. According to the executive who talked with Vanity Fair, Epstein got his way, despite suspicions that he was engaging in insider trading.
According to the 2023 civil case against Jeffries, Smith, and Abercrombie & Fitch, the company allegedly provided the “financial lifeblood” necessary for Jeffries and his associates to “sexually terrorize aspiring male models.”
“This is all connected to Jeffrey Epstein's blackmail ring and it's starting to become blatantly obvious. Notice how all the Epstein associates and blackmail rings are going down, one by one....” posted @PepeLivesMatter on Truth Social, drawing a connection between Wexner’s purchase of Abercrombie & Fitch and Epstein’s criminal enterprise.
Along with Jeffries’ partner Matt Smith, another man called Jim Jacobson was also arrested.
Jacobson, who according to the recent indictment also went by the aliases “Jim Jake,” “Mrs. Cook,” and “Todd,” was allegedly employed by Jeffries and Smith to recruit victims for them.
According to the grand jury, the trio paid dozens of men to travel across the world to meet with Jeffries and Smith for paid sex, including in New York, England, France, Italy, Morocco, and Saint-Barthélemy, a French-owned island in the Caribbean.
At the parties the men were trafficked to, security allegedly controlled entry and exit to “Sex Events,” where Jeffries’ staff plied men with alcohol, poppers, lubricant, Viagra, and condoms. Staff also allegedly gave these men sex toys and costumes, then paid them to have sex with Jeffries and Smith.
Jacobson would also allegedly “try out” the men by paying them for sex before referring them up to the Jeffries and Smith parties. At these parties, men were expected to engage in sex acts they weren’t informed about beforehand, including anal sex, putting sex toys in their anus, and getting high-pressure enemas from a hose.
According to the grand jury indictment, Jacobsen caused the men to believe that going to the events would help their career, and would even incorporate Abercrombie products into the parties. Jacobsen would also conceal the true nature of the events by giving the men itineraries that didn’t refer to the fact that they were expected to have sex and instead looked like schedules for modeling photo shoots.
Jeffries, Smith, and Jacobsen also allegedly “intentionally recruited heterosexual men” for the parties, where they were pressured into sex acts they didn’t want to engage in. Some of the men were also injected with a “prescription-grade erection-inducing substance” to make men who were physically incapable or unwilling to engage in sex acts fulfill Jeffries and Smith’s sexual desires.
Abercrombie & Fitch didn’t immediately respond to questions about whether any executive at the company was ever aware of the alleged sex trafficking enterprise.
The civil 2023 lawsuit alleges Abercrombie was aware of at least some of Jeffries’ behavior.
“At one point, a video circulated within the Abercrombie office, which depicted Mike Jeffries sniffing what was believed to be cocaine off a man’s penis,” that lawsuit alleged. “The company did nothing to discourage the behavior captured in the video and in fact continued to financially reward Jeffries for his methods of recruiting young models, even though those methods were known to include rampant sexual abuse of young men.”
“Gee... guess which conglomerate owned Abercrombie & Fitch when Mike Jeffries was hired. That's right... L Brands, founded by Jeffrey Epstein's sugar daddy Les Wexner,” posted @superlorna69 on X.
Wexner’s L Brands, which used to be called The Limited, also owned the lingerie company Victoria’s Secret. According to the actress and model Alicia Arden, Epstein traded on that connection by acting like he was trying to recruit her for the company’s catalog back in 1997.
According to Arden, Epstein introduced himself as a talent scout for Victoria’s Secret before inviting her to his hotel room in Santa Monica for an audition, then assaulting her.
According to reporting by the New York Times, executives at the company found out that Epstein had tried the same thing more than once, and told Wexner about it.
“It is unclear what if any action Mr. Wexner took in response,” the newspaper added.
In 2022, a woman sued Wexner and some of his charitable foundations in a New York federal court over accusations that “employees of Wexner and or related entities” were responsible for her abuse by Jeffrey Epstein in New York.
That case was dismissed in February on the grounds that its claims had already been adjudicated in a state court. Wexner’s lawyers are now trying to file sanctions against the woman, claiming that the cases were part of an attempted blackmail plot against him, which she denies.
“A lot is happening in New York,” added @redneck in a post on Truth Social discussing the indictment against Jeffries. “Diddy indicted, mayor Adams and his associates indicted, now Mike Jeffries.”
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