Former Abercrombie CEO arrested in sex trafficking investigation
Brandon Bell/Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — Former Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries, his partner Matt Smith and a third man, Jim Jacobson, were arrested Tuesday as part of a criminal sex trafficking investigation by the FBI and federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, sources familiar with the investigation told ABC News.
The investigation involved whether the men sexually exploited and abused young men at parties they hosted in the United States and around the world, the sources said.
Federal prosecutors acknowledged the investigation in January after alleged victims filed a civil lawsuit a year ago.
“The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York has launched a criminal investigation of the alleged events and occurrences discussed in Plaintiff’s Complaint,” prosecutors said in a court filing.
“We will respond in detail to the allegations after the Indictment is unsealed, and when appropriate, but plan to do so in the courthouse – not the media,” Brian Bieber, an attorney for Michael Jeffries, told ABC News Tuesday.The attorney for the plaintiff,
Brad Edwards of Edwards Henderson, told ABC News in a statement: “As we laid out in our lawsuit, this was an Abercrombie run, sex trafficking organization that permeated throughout the company and allowed the three individuals arrested today to victimize dozens and dozens of young, aspiring male models.”
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
(JEFFERSON COUNTY, Colo.) — A Colorado teenager who was shot in the face while looking for a place to take homecoming photos said he knew he was bleeding and told deputies he screamed “I was going to die,” according to an affidavit.
The teenager is hospitalized with serious injuries, according to the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office. Medical professionals told the sheriff’s office they believed there was a fragment of a bullet in the teen’s head, according to the affidavit.
Officers responded to a report of two trespassers on a property on Tuesday to find one of two teens shot in the face. The homeowner had also called her boyfriend to report the trespassers, according to the sheriff’s office.
A 17-year-old and his friend left a Colorado high school around 3:30 p.m. and went looking for a place to take homecoming pictures this weekend, the affidavit said.
The teens drove around and saw a house with a lake and a dock. They stopped to try to contact the homeowner to get permission to take photos near the lake, according to an affidavit.
The boys parked in front of the gate, walked up the driveway to the house and knocked on the door, but received no answer, the affidavit said.
They then walked down the driveway and returned to the car, which was parked on the roadway near the property. One of the boys then took out his school binder and was writing a note to leave for the homeowner when they saw a truck pull up and block their car, the affidavit said.
The driver then got out of the truck and walked toward the front of the car, pulled a handgun from his holster and pointed it toward the boys. They then heard the handgun go off and saw the windshield glass shatter, the affidavit said.
The boys told authorities they heard the truck driver say ‘oh s—, my gun went off,” according to the affidavit.
The boy in the passenger seat then got out of the car, took off his shirt and ran around to the driver’s side and began to help his friend, applying pressure to his wounds, according to the affidavit.
The driver then tried to assist in rendering aid, but the boy pushed him away and asked why he shot his friend, the affidavit said.
The victim told the sheriff’s office he did not think the man “intentionally shot him,” and he didn’t see the gun but heard the shot. After the gun went off, the shooter tried to help the boy, according to the affidavit.
The victim was “bleeding heavily from his face and had blood running down his arm” when officers responded to the scene, according to an affidavit. The 17-year-old’s friend was holding a white t-shirt up to his face to put pressure on the wound, the affidavit said.
An apparent bullet hole in the windshield of the car was centered where the driver’s seat was located.
When an officer tried to ask the man — 38-year-old Brent Metz — if he had shot a gun, he did not answer the question and said he wanted to speak to his lawyer, the affidavit said.
Metz told authorities the gun was in the truck for safety purposes and he was placed in handcuffs, according to the affidavit.
Metz was then arrested and transported to the sheriff’s office, where he was booked into jail for first degree assault, felony managing, illegal discharge of a firearm and reckless endangerment, according to the sheriff’s office.
(WASHINGTON) — A piece of the Titan’s carbon-fiber hull recovered after the submersible’s deadly catastrophic implosion showed “anomalies,” a National Transportation Safety Board engineer said Wednesday during a weekslong hearing on the incident.
Don Kramer, the acting chief of the NTSB’s materials laboratory, testified during the U.S. Coast Guard’s hearing into the June 2023 implosion of the OceanGate submersible while on a deep-sea dive to the Titanic shipwreck.
Kramer said his team examined material from the manufacturing of the hull and found “several anomalies within the composite and the adhesive joints, including waviness, wrinkles, porosity and voids.”
They also examined a piece of the hull recovered from the ocean floor and found similar anomalies, including “waviness and wrinkles within the hull layers” and voids within the adhesive that joined the layers, he said. The recovered hull also showed “features consistent with rubbing damage at one of those adhesive joints.”
Kramer said the Titan debris on the ocean floor showed that the hull “encountered a significant amount of delamination” — or separating into layers — most of which was within or adjacent to co-bonded adhesive interfaces.
Asked by OceanGate’s counsel whether any of the delaminations, voids or rubbing damage could have been present before the implosion, as opposed to being caused by the implosion, Kramer said he is not offering analysis as to when they occurred.
Further asked by OceanGate’s counsel whether any of the issues he observed could have caused the implosion, Kramer said that is “still subject to our own internal analysis at this point.”
Strain response after loud bang on dive 80
Kramer also discussed the loud bang passengers heard as the Titan ascended during a dive that occurred a year before the implosion, on July 15, 2022 — referred to as dive 80 — which has been referenced throughout the two-week hearing. The bang was also detected by the Titan’s real-time monitoring system, which had sensors to detect acoustic events, as well as multiple strain gages to monitor mechanical strain, he said.
Kramer said his team determined that the hull’s strain response changed after this loud bang incident in subsequent dives in 2022. He said the strain gage data showed a change in the strain in the hull for four of the eight gages.
“Those changes persisted from dive to dive,” he said.
There was no difference when comparing the strain response to a dive prior to dive 80, Kramer said.
No strain data is available for dives conducted in 2023, according to Kramer.
Phil Brooks, OceanGate’s former engineering director, testified on Monday that following the loud bang on dive 80, the strain gage data showed a minor “shift,” though they did not see “any further shifts in strain data” on subsequent dives in 2022. Nothing “really seemed out of the ordinary,” and OceanGate co-founder and CEO Stockton Rush made the decision to continue dives, Brooks said.
Asked how his team arrived at its determination on the change in strain response based on the graphs of the available data, Kramer said, “I guess it’s a matter of opinion as to whether one can discern the changes in strain output.”
Brooks said Rush theorized that the loud bang was caused by the frame “readjusting back to its original shape” as it returned to the surface.
Kramer noted that the NTSB’s investigation is still ongoing, and the scope of his presentation was therefore limited.
Marine Technology Society draft letter to Rush
William Kohnen, the CEO and founder of submersible maker Hydrospace Group, said during his testimony on Wednesday that he would not have made a carbon-fiber hull. He said it would cost “too much money” and “is really, really difficult.”
The investigators asked Kohnen about a draft Marine Technology Society letter he wrote in March 2018 to Rush based on public safety concerns raised during a conference.
“This was considered an issue of where we as consensus, as professionals in this industry, had significant concerns — not on one particular thing, but the overall approach of neglecting the years of experience and tradition and diligence that we applied,” he said.
Kohnen said the letter was signed by around 40 members and went through other drafts, though the Marine Technology Society board never approved sending it to Rush on behalf of the society. Rush still managed to get a copy of the original draft letter, which Kohnen said they discussed over the phone.
During the call, Kohnen said he told Rush he found the language on OceanGate’s website confusing for the general public not familiar with submersibles and that they were “highly inferring” the experimental sub was classed, when that wasn’t the case. He said the website was subsequently updated.
Kohnen stressed the importance of classification and regulations to build safe submersibles.
“We have a record of 50 years without a single fatality until Titan,” he said. “It does indicate the power of our regulation.”
OceanGate suspended all exploration and commercial operations after the deadly implosion, which killed five people, including Rush.
The hearing on the incident is scheduled to run through Friday.
The main purpose of the hearing is to uncover the facts related to the implosion and to make recommendations, the Coast Guard said.
(MEMPHIS, Tenn.) — The judge overseeing the federal trial of three ex-Memphis police officers charged in connection with the January 2023 beating death of Tyre Nichols told the jury on Wednesday to disregard the emotional part of the previous day’s testimony from a former officer who pleaded guilty to charges connected to Nichols’ death.
Judge Mark Norris was referring to Desmond Mills Jr.’s statements on the witness stand Tuesday as he described how he felt when watching the police body camera footage from the night of Nichols’ beating, according to WATN-TV, the ABC affiliate in Memphis covering the case in the courtroom.
“I wish I would’ve stopped the punches. It hurts to watch. It hurts inside so much,” said Desmond Mills Jr., who cried during his testimony, according to WATN. “It felt bad every time the picture is on the screen to know I’m a part of that. I made his child fatherless. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I know ‘sorry’ won’t bring him back, but I pray his child has everything he needs growing up.”
Justin Smith, Demetrius Haley and Tadarrius Bean were charged on Sept. 12, 2023, with violating Nichols’ civil rights through excessive use of force, unlawful assault, failing to intervene in the assault and failing to render medical aid. These charges carry a maximum penalty of life in prison, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. The officers have pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Mills and Emmitt Martin III, the two other officers who were also charged in this case, have pleaded guilty to some of the federal charges.
Mills pleaded guilty to two of the four counts in the indictment — excessive force and failing to intervene, as well as conspiring to cover up his use of unlawful force, according to the DOJ. The government said it will recommend a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison, based on the terms of Mills’ plea agreement.
Martin pleaded guilty to excessive force and failure to intervene, as well as conspiracy to witness tamper, according to court records. The other two charges will be dropped at sentencing, which has been scheduled for Dec. 5, according to the court records.
“We’re praying for everyone involved,” Ben Crump, the civil rights attorney representing the Nichols’ family, said during a prayer vigil Wednesday morning outside the courthouse when asked for his response regarding Mills’ emotional testimony.
Crump said this trial was one of the most emotional trials he has ever attended, a sentiment shared by Antonio Romanucci, his co-counsel.
“In my career, which is now over 40 years,” Romanucci said, “I have never seen such testimony as I did yesterday — police officer who had such contrition. [Former] Officer Mills, without knowing it, just talked about why we’re here, and that’s for accountability.”
The prosecution told ABC News earlier this month that they will not have any statements until after the trial. The defense attorneys did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
Within the courtroom, defense attorneys cross-examined Mills regarding the use of his baton on Nichols, which Mills said on Tuesday he used to hit Nichols three times the night of their encounter, according to WATN.
Mills claimed that he didn’t use the baton to hit Nichols in the head, but admitted that he used it improperly since it’s only meant to be used in self-defense, according to WATN. He said it was the first time he ever used his baton or used excessive force on a suspect.
Mills noted that the use of his baton was not because verbal commands weren’t working on Nichols when asked by the defense, according to WATN.
Mills reiterated his testimony from Tuesday that he was angry and he sprayed himself with pepper spray, and therefore used excessive force on Nichols, according to WATN.
“I was angry because I just [pepper] sprayed myself in the face,” Mills said on Tuesday, according to WATN. “I didn’t give him a chance to give me his hands.”
Mills disagreed with Bean’s attorney when he asked Mills if he was the only one who could intervene to stop the beating, since Mills didn’t have his hands on Nichols that night, according to WATN. The ex-officer claimed that the other officers could have moved Nichols away from the strikes and punches while they held his hands.
Mills admitted to the defense that the reason he changed his statement about what happened that night was because he took a plea deal from prosecutors, according to WATN. He said he lied in earlier statements.
Mills told prosecutors that when he told Lt. Dewayne Smith, his former supervisor, that the arrest was done “by the book,” he only said that to hide what really happened, according to WATN. The ex-officer claimed that there was a mutual understanding that their off-camera conversations would go unreported.
“I needed this job for my wife and kids,” Mills said when the prosecution asked why he was not initially truthful about the encounter. “This job has good insurance. I have children with special needs. I needed this job for my family. I let them down.”
Mills was asked about response to resistance forms from the incident, stating they weren’t accurate and that Nichols, “was not aggressive at all,” according to WATN.
Mills said that Haley asked him if Mills’ body camera captured him during the encounter with Nichols.
“I hope I’m not on there,” Mills said Haley told him.
Body-camera footage shows that Nichols fled after police pulled him over on Jan. 7, 2023, for allegedly driving recklessly, then shocked him with a Taser and pepper-sprayed him.
Officers allegedly then beat Nichols minutes later after tracking him down. After the police encounter, Nichols was transferred to the hospital in critical condition.
“I was going along, either way, [with] the cover-up,” Mills said. “Hoping for the best that Mr. Nichols would survive and this whole thing would blow over.”
Nichols, 29, died in the hospital on Jan. 10, 2023. Footage shows the officers walking around, talking to each other as Nichols was injured and sitting on the ground.
Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn Davis said she has been unable to substantiate that Nichols was driving recklessly. The incident triggered protests and calls for police reform.
After the police encounter, Nichols was transferred to the hospital in critical condition. The medical examiner’s official autopsy report for Nichols showed he “died of brain injuries from blunt force trauma,” the district attorney’s office told Nichols’ family in May 2023.
The five former officers charged in this case were all members of the Memphis Police Department SCORPION unit — a crime suppression unit that was disbanded after Nichols’ death. All of the officers were fired for violating MPD policies.
“As an officer, I respond to scenes where the victim looks like Mr. Nichols [did after he was beaten],” Mills said. “This was the first time I was a part of it.”
