The former CEO of American fashion brand Abercrombie & Fitch is facing fresh allegations of abuse at sex events across the world, according to a BBC investigation.
A BBC Panorama investigation in October last year had first revealed claims that Mike Jeffries and his British partner Matthew Smith exploited young men between 2009 and 2015. A lawsuit was filed against Jeffries, Smith and Abercrombie & Fitch (A&F) last year, alleging “international sex trafficking and abuse of prospective models”. Eight more men have now come forward to the BBC.
A witness said he went to a sex event in Spain with Jeffries and his partner, believing it was a photoshoot, the report said. “It was like a movie set of an Abercrombie store,” he told the BBC about the event in 2011. Then aged 20, he said he was offered a chance to feature in a company advert if he flew from his home in Los Angeles to Madrid to meet the CEO of A&F.
The night before the event, he said he was paid EUR 3,500 in cash, which he believed was general spending money for his three-day stay in Madrid.
On the night of the event, he was guided to their hotel suite where he said Jeffries and his partner Smith immediately started touching him and Jeffries forcibly kissed him. The former Abercrombie chief then performed oral sex on him, he said as per the BBC.
“I tried to say no repeatedly. And then I just got kind of convinced to do something. But I constantly was saying no, and I wanted to go,” he told the BBC.
A middleman, who worked as a talent scout and executive assistant for Jeffries, offered him the opportunity, he added.
According to multiple witnesses, young men were also injected with liquid viagra by Jeffries’ assistants. One man told the BBC that he felt he was “going to die” after one of these injections caused an extreme reaction during an event in New York at Jeffries’ home. He said he felt hot and dizzy but nobody called an ambulance.
A middleman linked to the events denied any wrongdoing, adding that men participated “with their eyes wide open”.
In the aftermath of the BBC’s report, the FBI had reportedly launched an investigation into the claims. But enforcement officials have declined to comment.
Jeffries, 80, who was the CEO of A&F from 1992 to 2014, has denied all allegations.
