The former CEO of US fashion brand Abercrombie & Fitch has faced fresh allegations of misconduct in sex programmes around the world, according to a BBC investigation.
In October last year, a BBC Panorama investigation first claimed that Mike Jeffries and his British partner Matthew Smith abused young men between 2009 and 2015. Last year, a lawsuit was filed against Jeffries, Smith and Abercrombie & Fitch (A&F), alleging “international sex trafficking and abuse of aspiring models”. Now eight more men have come forward to the BBC.
The report said a witness said he went to a sex event in Spain with Jeffries and his partner that he thought was a photo shoot. “It was like a movie set in an Abercrombie store,” he told the BBC about the event in 2011. The 20-year-old at the time said he was offered the chance to star in a company ad provided he traveled from his home in Los Angeles to Madrid to meet with A&F’s CEO.
He said he was given 3,500 euros in cash the night before the event, which he said was normal spending money for his three-day stay in Madrid.
On the night of the incident, she was taken to his hotel room, where she said Jeffries and his partner Smith immediately began touching her and Jeffries forcibly kissed her. According to the BBC, she said the former Abercrombie chief then performed oral sex on her.
“I tried to say ‘no’ over and over again. And then I somehow managed to agree to do something. But I kept saying ‘no’, and I wanted to leave,” he told the BBC.
He said a middleman who worked as a talent scout and executive assistant for Jeffries offered him the opportunity.
According to several witnesses, young men were also injected with liquid Viagra by Jeffries’ assistants. One man told the BBC he thought he was “going to die” when he had a severe reaction to one of these injections during an event at Jeffries’ home in New York. He said he felt hot and dizzy but no one called an ambulance.
A middleman involved in the event denied any wrongdoing and said the men participated “with open eyes”.
Following the BBC report, the FBI reportedly launched an investigation into the claims. But enforcement officials have declined to comment.
Jeffries, 80, who was CEO of A&F from 1992 to 2014, has denied all allegations.
