Once a powerful man among the head honchos of American clothing labels, he was recently arrested for alleged sex trafficking. Who is Mike Jeffries?

Warning: This post contains descriptions of sexual acts

In an explosive BBC investigation last year that resulted in the Panaroma episode, The Abercrombie Guys: The Dark Side of Cool, as well as the 10-part podcast The Abercrombie Guys, former Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Michael Jeffries (popularly known as Mike) was portrayed as a sexual predator. As a result of the reporting, a civil lawsuit was filed in October 2023 by a former model, David Bradberry, who alleged that the once powerful Mr Jeffries was sex-trafficking and exploited young men under the pretext of offering them opportunities in the modelling world. That case is still ongoing, but yesterday in New York, Mike Jeffries, his life partner Matthew Smith, and a specially appointed employee, a “recruiter” and middleman James Jacobson were arrested. According to FBI indictment announced shortly later, the trio allegedly “preyed on the hopes and dreams of their victims by exploiting, abusing, and silencing them to fulfill their own desires with insidious secret intentions.” In the charge sheets, Mr Jeffries was said to have coerced aspiring male models into sex acts.

The BBC conducted investigations into Mr Jeffries’s abhorrent behaviour and his sex operations since 2021. In the first episode The Abercrombie Guys of the podcast series World of Secrets, investigative journalist Rianna Croxford spoke of how she began digging into what she called “one of fashion’s darkest secrets”. It was winter and just after the New Year, during which, like the rest of the world, the UK was under COVID-19 lockdown—for many now, that is probably a distant memory. Ms Croxford was working from home. Unsurprisingly, she was scrolling through social media. Then she spotted a post of a former male model with the intriguing response to the #metoo movement: “how about #ustoo?” While the rest of us would take note of that and let it be, Ms Croxford contacted the guy, and, amazingly, he replied. She said that the phone call led to what she described as “the most intense investigation I have ever worked on”. They “kept talking and talking” and then he said, although hesitantly, he was willing to share a secret with her that he had never spilled to anyone before that telephone conversation.

She said the phone call led to what she described as “the most intense investigation I have ever worked on”. They “kept talking and talking” and then he said, although hesitantly, he was willing to share a secret

“It is probably, like, the darkest experience I have ever dealt with, ” he said on the podcast. “They flew me from LA to New York. They had someone come shave me, like the whole body, ’cos that’s how they like the boys,” a detail already borne out by the old A&F ads, visuals on their once-collectible paper bags and the impossible-to-score “magalog”, the A&F Quarterly, that some gay men called “weeknight lover”, or “as a kid, it was porn”, one former A&F model told the BBC. Male body hair removal was clearly a prelude to something less innocent than it seemed, like modelling. Nearly a year after that phone call, Ms Croxford and her “source”—identified in the podcast as Barrett Pall, now a life coach—finally met in person in Southern California. “The more I went into this experience with the ‘Abercrombie & Fitch people’,” he said, “the more dehumanizing, degrading…,” tailing off, unable to continue. Sniffling, he added, “I just was really messed up as I was.” The A&F people would inevitably mean the three indicted—two Americans, one British.

But before he could meet the powerful pair at the top, Mr Pall had to go through what was described as an “audition step” by a person identified as Jim—said to be James Jacobson, “older, White, out-of-shape, overweight”. He met with the fellow, “have some sort of sexual experience with Jim, and Jim would be the yes or no to moving on to the Abercrombie guys.” He justified his continuing to the upper rungs as the opportunity to “open so many doors”. He revealed that “one of the craziest things about all of it” was that Jim “was missing his nose. And it’s such a weird thing to throw out there. It sounds like, come on, this can’t be real. He had what was like a snakeskin bandage that was made specifically for him to, like, cover up, that piece of his face.” He described the sex that followed to be “super degrading” and something he never thought he would ever share. “Then it was like him and his underwear, then it was like ‘please me’… I remember performing oral sex on him…” He paused, seemingly unable to continue.

A&F boys were extremely popular when the store opened in Singapore in December 2011. Photo: jayelleenelial/Flickr

“And then quickly back into your clothes,” he said, “ given an envelope with money; told, ‘I think the guys will like you’. They like guys, you know, more masculine, but butch it up.” Mr Pall was paid US$500 (about S$660) for that session. After he left, he received a message to say he passed the audition. Arrangements were then made for him to meet the Abercrombie guys. “Everything just moved really quickly from there,” he said. Later, at that rendezvous in New York, he was brought to a room, where two younger, A&F-clad guys were waiting. He was told that he would be “physically groomed—but, like, completely naked, and with my legs put above my legs so that all parts of me could be shaved.” He added, “you’re naked, completely dehumanised, as if you are an animal. [I] felt like a caged animal in that room.” A man came to collect his ID and Mr Pall was given an NDA to sign, “like, in 2 seconds, as soon as I am done being shaved”. He was still naked, and he was not in the presence of a lawyer or a notary public.

The following day, he was chauffeured in a Land Rover together with two other guys, of which one was a porn star, to an “event” in the Hamptons, the seaside resort northeast of New York City, where many extremely wealthy Americans have homes and spend the summer. Once there, he was showed the guest quarters, told to brush his teeth, and then taken to the main house, where he was given a pair of Abercrombie briefs. “There was the logistics guys who had planned everything, standing ready with anything you might want: condoms, lube, poppers,” he informed. “And then once those double doors into their master bedroom opened, I remember seeing Mike Jeffries in the bed with the porn star.” He was asked “to join the party”. There were five of them in that room, including Mr Jeffries and his partner Matthew Smith. And, “before I know it, it’s done, back to the guest house. Upstairs, everyone given their envelopes.” In Mr Pall’s, there was US$2,500 in cash.

A man came to collect his ID and Mr Pall was given an NDA to sign, “like, in 2 seconds, as soon as I am done being shaved”

That is only one of the many consistent stories those who eventually agreed to be interviewed by the BBC recounted. According to the FBI during a press conference to reveal the indictment, the three arrested men allegedly “preyed on the hopes and dreams of their victims by exploiting, abusing, and silencing them to fulfill their own desires with insidious secret intentions.” Mr Jeffries is indicted on 16 federal counts of “sex trafficking and international prostitution in New York”. In the States, their laws stipulate that “sex trafficking includes getting an adult to travel to another state or country to have sex for money by using force, fraud or coercion”, as local media illuminated. What Mr Jeffries and his two cohorts were involved in what was essentially a transnational operation to facilitate their own seemingly unquenchable sexual gratification.

Michael Stanton Jefferies was born in Oklahoma in 1943 (or 1944) and grew up in Los Angeles. Throughout his tenure at A&F, he lived in Columbus, Ohio, where the brand was headquartered for more than 20 years. The HQ was referred to as “campus”, augmenting the youthfulness the brand almost desperately projected. Little is known about his family, except that he is the son of the owner of a chain of party supply stores, Daniel Jeffries. Or his younger days other than that he went to Claremont McKenna College, then London School of Economics, and Columbus Business School, where he received an MBA in 1968. Three years later, he married Susan Hansen, with whom he has a son. There is no information on their marital status, although it has been said that both live separately. According to the now-defunct Business Week, a Herb Ritts photograph featuring a chiselled male torso hung over the fireplace in his bedroom.

Abercrombie & Fitch Orchard Road store just before they close in 2021. File photo: Zhao Xiangji for SOTD

Mr Jeffries headed Abercrombie & Fitch from 1992 to 2014. He was hired by Les Wexner, the CEO of L Brands (owner of Victoria’s Secret [with that comeback show], whose own former top executive Ed Razek was accused of sexually aggressive behavior towards their famous “angels”), which at the time was known as The Limited (also a fashion brand). Mr Jeffries was tasked to revive the the label. And he did just that. Abercrombie & Fitch, once almost dead, quickly become the top choice of American teenagers in the early noughties even when it positioned itself to appeal only to a select group. Mr Jefferies himself said to Salon magazine in 2006: “We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. Such as those in the images of the ad campaigns, lensed by Bruce Webber (himself, in 2018, accused of sexual impropriety by male models). He continued: “A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.”

“Attractive” people are key to not only A&F’s marketing, it was essential to the HR policy of their retail operations. In that Salon interview, Mr Jeffries said, “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. We don’t market to anyone other than that.” In 2004, two years before that Salon interview and twelves years after Mr Jeffries became the CEO, the company paid an out-of-court settlement of US$40 million to former employees who were purportedly assigned backroom work due to the colour of their skin. His justification for the good-looks-only policy: “Those companies that are in trouble are trying to target everybody: young, old, fat, skinny. But then you become totally vanilla. You don’t alienate anybody, but you don’t excite anybody, either.” Few knew then that the choices he made, especially with regards to male employees were reflection of his own taste and to excite himself—and his romantic partner, too.

His justification for the good-looks-only policy: “Those companies that are in trouble are trying to target everybody: young, old, fat, skinny. But then you become totally vanilla. You don’t alienate anybody, but you don’t excite anybody, either.”

Very little is known about Matthew Smith. Even with the BBC’s considerable digging, not much is revealed of the British national. He met Mike Jeffries in 1989. Where or how, it is not publicly known. Born in Hampshire, Southeast England, Mr Smith was in his twenties when he and the American CEO embarked on a romantic relationship. At the time, Mr Jeffries is believed to be still married to Susan Hansen. Until the men met, Mr Smith had no background in fashion, The BCC found that he “studied agriculture and food marketing”. He soon moved to the US, where he pursued an MBA, but probably to be near his new-found love. According to the BBC, he was then owner of a chain of eponymous hair salons in the mid-West. It was not said if he himself was a hairdresser. A former employee stated that he only “hired women to cut hair”. All staffers had to wear A&F clothes as uniforms, none of which were provided by the salon boss. He was, concurrently, running the Mike Jeffries Family Office, which oversaw Mr Jeffries’s homes, investments, and professional compensation. Although he was not employed by A&F, he was instrumental in their corporate affairs, even investments overseas.

According to FBI investigations and the BBC reporting, the “mysterious” Mr Smith had a not insignificant role in what federal prosecutors described as “sex events” (although they did not seem to be on the same scale as Sean Combs’s “freak offs”), paying “prolific amounts on a secret staff to run” them. The FBI asserted that Mr Jeffries and his enablers “spent millions of dollars on a massive infrastructure to support this operation and maintain its secrecy.” In the compelling BBC podcast The Abercrombie Guys, Mr Smith was often seen in the couple’s Hamptons villa that sat on palatial grounds, kept humming by the “secret staff”—mainly guys believed to be models (how many of them were auditioned is not clear, but many appeared to have signed NDAs); some even washed the owners’ cars. And the non-staffers who attended the events, considered Mr Smith “central” to what they partook.

An A&F paper bag from the mid-1990s that was unimaginably covetable. The image on it was lensed by Bruce Weber. File Photo: Jim Sim for SOTD

Still, the real Mr Smith did not quite stand up. In a 2012 court case, a pilot, Michael Bustin, sued Abercrombie & Fitch, alleging that the company replaced him with a younger pilot due to his age. The case was settled out of court and the terms of the settlement was not made known, but the lawsuit and documents filed revealed more than what the men behind the use of the private plane probably wanted to be made known. A “manual” onboard, not put together specifically for the pilot, was revealed and believed to be the work of Mr Smith. The 47-page document spelled out specific instructions—dubbed “aircraft standards”—for those serving the M&M duo: What music to play, where to place the couple’s dogs, and what the crew must wear (they were disallowed coats unless the temperature was below 10°C), which, unsurprisingly, must be from A&F, including underwear. Assuming that there was no need for the crew to be down to their skivvies, it was not—and still isn’t—clear why the men’s underclothes mattered.

In the present case, 15 “John Does”—unnamed victims—have filed civil lawsuits against the three men. Federal prosecutors believe that more men were victimised and encouraged them to come forward. At the moment, it seemed only victims on US soil have shared their stories. Mike Jeffries and Matthew Smith were arrested in Palm Beach, Florida. The former was released on a US$10 million bond, while the later remains in custody. James Jacobson was arrested in Wisconsin. He was released on bail of US$500,000. Many are now saying that what the men did is not entirely out in the open. Barrett Pall, the first model-victim to speak to the BBC, said, “Mike Jeffries is a person with extreme power, especially back then when Abercrombie was at their height.” He described the former CEO’s far-reaching operation as “a well-oiled machine that they have carefully crafted.” And that Mr Jefferies “use[d] his wealth and power” to ensnare young men (often times from rural America) into their lair of debauchery and, some say, depravity. This probably isn’t the end of it.

Update (26 October 2024, 08:30): Mike Jeffries in a New York federal court and pleaded not guilty to 16 federal counts of sex trafficking and international prostitution, according to CNN and the BBC. Mr Jeffries was told by the judge that he would held under house arrest in his residences in New York and Florida, and only permitted to leave for pre-approved “medical appointments, visits with his lawyers, and religious events”. He posted a bail of US$10 million, by putting up as collateral his house on Fisher Island in New York. The BBC also reported that Mr Jeffries’s wife, Susan Hansen, who attended the hearing with the couple’s son agreeing to used the agreed to use a house she owns for the bond. It is not known if Ms Hansen is aware of her husband’s activities or if she believes her husband is innocent of the charges.

Mr Jeffries’s British-American partner Matthew Smith, who faces the same charges, will appear in a New York court at a yet-to-be-known date. James Jacobson, the nose-less “recruiter”, whose hearing was after the former A&F CEO, also pleaded not guilty. According to prosecutors, the three men put their victims through “violent and exploitative” sexual acts that included drug use against the will of the men they targeted.