Uncles supported model boys with the promise of a career – Labour

A new sex scandal is rocking America

They sold their victims to other countries for millions of dollars

Puff Daddy let the genie out of the bottle

Three people have been arrested so far

Not a day goes by without new and new accusations against the rapper Puff Daddy, or as he is better known in America – Pee Diddy, because of the sexual things he had with small children after give them drugs. The last two claims brought to court recently are for the rape of a 10-year-old boy and a 17-year-old youth.

In 2005, the child came with his parents from California to meet representatives from the music industry because he wanted to be a rapper and an actor. He was supposed to listen to Pee Diddy, but instead, the rapper’s casting assistant gave the boy a drugged soda, after which the rapper abused him. When the boy woke up, the musician threatened to kill his parents if he told anyone about what happened. The second lawsuit alleges that P. Diddy forced a 17-year-old boy to perform sexual acts with him and his bodyguard in 2008. This all happened during a three-day audition for the rapper’s reality show. After the teenager refused, Puff Daddy removed him from the list of partners and the young man could not return to the music industry for the next seven years.

It is likely that we will learn about many more of these stories before the rapper’s court hearing, which is scheduled for May 5, 2025. Against the backdrop of the genie being let out of the bottle with Puff Daddy, a new kind of scandal is brewing. in the US that promises to be less loud and rude.

Ten years of silence

This time it is about the sexual exploitation of young men who were promised as career models. Almost at the same time as the case of Pee Diddy, the FBI began an investigation into the crime that was going on behind the scenes of the famous denim brand Abercrombie & Fitch. Since then, twelve years have passed, when the victims have remained silent, but only now they have the courage to speak out – a kind of male version of the feminist movement MeToo.

The fashion brand’s former director Mike Jeffries, 80, and his business partner Matthew Smith, 61, are facing charges. As the study found, for more than seven years – from 2008 to 2015 – Jeffries and Smith forced young male models into sexual relations, promising them a role in the world of fashion. They recruit many young victims to sell them later in the United States, France, Italy, Morocco and Saint Barthelemy in the Caribbean for millions of dollars. Investigators have already found more than two thousand checks that paid for plane tickets and hotels for dozens of different men.

The three defendants (left to right): Matthew Smith, Mike Jeffries, and mediator James Jacobson.

A few days after the first arrest, the FBI arrested the third defendant, 71-year-old James Jacobson. According to investigators, she was hired by Jeffries and Smith to recruit men “to perform commercial sexual services.”

They all deny their guilt

As the operators suggest, the executives of the fashion brand first used their position for personal gain, and then created an organization that made it possible to make millions of dollars from those who thought they would help ​these powerful leaders with their careers.

“The message of today’s prosecution is clear: the sexual exploitation of vulnerable people is a crime, and the crime is not against victims who dream of a future in fashion, modeling or any other different business,” said Breon Peace at a press conference. US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York.

Jeffries and Smith were arrested in West Palm Beach, Florida, at their mansions on October 22. At a hearing in federal court in West Palm Beach, a magistrate judge allowed Jeffries to be released on $10 million bail, but ordered the former Abercrombie & Fitch boss to stay at home and a device Wear GPS tracking.
Smith is being held in custody pending his final hearing. The court does not want to grant bail to the second suspect because he is a UK citizen and could flee to his home country. Jacobson was arrested in Wisconsin, where he lives, and was released on $500,000 bail. All the accused deny their guilt.

Abercrombie & Fitch management declined to comment for now, although its legal department is now required to defend the brand’s former executives because Jeffries committed the crime while he was its boss. the company.

Tight organization

The indictment alleges that Jeffries and Smith, using the Jeffries family office, allegedly hired and paid for “a separate series of domestic workers” to “events sex” organized which included furnishing physical spaces and transporting men. The cost of hosting the event includes increased security to prevent outsiders from entering the private party. Workers are also employed to supply participants with alcohol, drugs and sex toys.

Mike Jeffries has been at the helm of “A&F” for 22 years, and he may have lured hundreds of young people into prostitution.

According to the yet-to-be-named victims, the defendants used coercive and deceptive recruitment methods, including tricking men into believing they could attend events sex to give them opportunities to become brand models or advance their career. The defendants also required prospective applicants to undergo a “sexual screening” by Jacobson. Otherwise, they would not get the prestigious job. For each adopted youth, the intermediary received from Jeffries from 500 to several thousand dollars.

The defendants had misled potential victims about the nature of the events. For example, they told them they were going to do a photo shoot for Abercrombie, and they were invited on a letterhead or gifts from the brand. The victims were forced to sign non-disclosure agreements and hand over their phones while at Jeffries’ private parties. At the events, they were placed all over their bodies by specially hired people. The organizers reportedly forced the men to inject their penises with an erection-inducing substance “more than once”, often leaving the victims in pain that lasts for several hours.

Looking for handsome, cool guys

Remember that nine years ago, Jeffries was already involved in a scandal when he said in an interview with Salon magazine that his brand was only suitable for “beautiful, cool people” and that there were people who were not the His clothes fit, that is fat people.

“We employ beautiful people in our stores because they attract other beautiful people, and we want to sell to cool, beautiful people. We don’t sell to anyone but them. There are many people who do not fit in our clothes and cannot be there. We’ll pull it off,” Jeffries says.

The unadorned models of the brand show that his clothes are for rich, young, successful boys of the elite.

He then has to apologize for his words, although Abercrombie’s next advertising campaign, featuring ten shirtless guys, shows that the brand will continue to stick to its marketing policy. Jeffries is the man who reinvented the story of the hundred-year-old brand, making it for the rich, the young, the white, the successful, the students of prestigious colleges, those who were already born with a silver spoon in their mouth to show their elitism. .

A life sentence is expected

Already last year, a certain David Bradbury filed a lawsuit against Abercrombie & Fitch, but then his accusations did not receive such a wide response. In his statement, he claims that while he was working as a model in 2010, Jeffries’ partner told him he had to perform oral sex with him if he wanted to get the job and eventually meet to Jeffries.

If 80-year-old Mike Jeffries is found guilty, he faces at least 20 years in prison, which means life.

Bradbury complied and later went to the casting at Jeffries’ house, which he said was like an official brand-sponsored event because it included meeting Jeffries. Once he is at the house of the head of the brand, the young man is attacked by the boss, while four security guards in Abercrombie clothes are watching him. Bradbury then flew on a private plane to Nice, where he was again forced to perform sexual acts with Jeffries.
There are more than a hundred names of victims in the case, which is now being investigated by the court, but the investigation does not claim that their number will increase. If convicted, the defendants face a possible life sentence and a mandatory minimum of 15 years in prison on the trafficking charges. And for interstate prostitution, they also face up to 20 years in prison.

“To anyone who thinks they can take advantage of other people and coerce them using the ‘sofa loan’ system – asking for sexual favors from job applicants in exchange for work – would this case should be a warning: prepare to replace that bed with an indoor bed. federal prison,” prosecutor Peace warns.