Former Abercrombie & Fitch CEO arrested on sex trafficking charges
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(NEW YORK) — Former Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries and two others were arrested Tuesday as part of a criminal sex trafficking investigation by the FBI and federal prosecutors in Brooklyn.
Jeffries, his partner Matt Smith and a third man, Jim Jacobson, are accused of operating an international sex trafficking and prostitution business that recruited young men for parties in the U.S. and abroad, according to an indictment.
The former retail executive and Smith relied on their vast financial resources, Jeffries’ power as the CEO of Abercrombie, and numerous people, including Jacobson and a network of employees, contractors and security professionals, to run a business “that was dedicated to fulfilling their sexual desires and ensuring that their international sex trafficking and prostitution business was kept secret,” the indictment alleges.
Federal prosecutors said the trio paid dozens of men to travel around the world to engage in sex acts. The indictment mentions 15 alleged victims, identified as John Does #1-15. Jeffries allegedly recruited, hired and paid a slate of household staff to “facilitate and supervise the Sex Events.”
Jacobson traveled throughout the United States and internationally to recruit and interview men for the so-called sex events. During “tryouts” of potential candidates, Jacobson required that the candidates first engage in sex acts with him, according to prosecutors.
The indictment said many of the men were coerced, led to believe that attending the events would yield modeling opportunities with Abercrombie or otherwise benefit their careers, or, in the alternative, that not complying with requests for certain acts during the sex events could harm their careers.
The defendants are charged with sex trafficking and interstate prostitution. They are expected to make appearances in the jurisdictions where the men were arrested in Florida and Wisconsin before they’re brought to Central Islip in Long Island, New York, at a later date for arraignment.
“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 Jeffries, told ABC News on Tuesday.
Attorneys for the other two defendants did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Abercrombie & Fitch declined ABC News’ request for comment.
Federal prosecutors had acknowledged the investigation in January after alleged victims filed a civil lawsuit a year ago.
Jeffries, who transformed Abercrombie from a traditional Ohio outfitter into a powerhouse teen fashion brand, has been accused in civil lawsuits of exploiting young men for sex at parties he hosted at his Hamptons estate in New York, London, Venice and elsewhere with his partner, Smith.
One of the plaintiffs, David Bradberry, a former crewman on the reality series “Below Deck,” said Jeffries made Abercrombie successful by the “oversexualization of young men.”
His lawsuit accused Jeffries, Smith, Jacobson and Abercrombie itself of luring attractive young men under the guise of making them an Abercrombie model and then forcing them to take drugs and perform sex acts.
The plaintiff’s attorney, 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.”
(LOS ANGELES) — The former Los Angeles police detective convicted in 2012 of killing her ex-lover’s wife was denied parole on Wednesday in the 1986 murder and will continue to serve her 27 years-to-life sentence.
Stephanie Lazarus was convicted of murdering Sherri Rasmussen, a 29-year-old hospital critical care nursing director, who was shot three times in the home she shared with her husband, John Ruetten.
Lazarus was sentenced to 27 years to life after a jury found her guilty of first-degree murder. She became eligible for parole in 2023 after the state of California passed a law giving special consideration to youthful offenders who had committed their crimes when they were under the age of 26.
Lazarus was 25 at the time of the murder.
Commissioner Garland stated that the board had “found good cause to rescind Lazarus’ parole” and would reconvene for further hearings regarding Lazarus.
There will be another chance for parole. Lazarus will be set for another suitability hearing within 120 days.
“The Killer Down the Hall,” a new “20/20” airing Friday, Oct. 4, on ABC at 9 p.m. E.T. and streaming the next day on Hulu, features the story of Stephanie Lazarus, including interviews with the victim’s family and friends.
“It’s definitely, uh, pound for pound, one of the greatest true-crime stories of all time,” Mark Groubert, a journalist who wrote a feature on Lazarus’ LAPD unit for L.A. Weekly, told “20/20.”
Ruetten and Lazarus met at UCLA in the 1970s and had a friendly relationship that involved casual sex, according to Ruetten’s testimony at Lazarus’ trial. Ruetten also testified that he never considered Lazarus his girlfriend. He also admitted to sleeping with Lazarus shortly after becoming engaged to Rasmussen. On Feb. 24, 1986, Ruetten discovered his wife lying in a pool of blood on the living room floor of their condo in Van Nuys, California. He immediately called 911.
The original investigators determined the crime scene at the home that Ruetten and Rasmussen shared showed all the signs of a “hot prowl,” a term police use to describe a home invasion. Investigators strongly believed that Rasmussen was the victim of a burglary that escalated into her murder. She had ligature marks on her wrist, indicating that, at some point, someone had tied her up. She also had three gunshot wounds to her chest, along with a bite mark on her arm.
On the night of the murder, LAPD Homicide Detective Lyle Mayer questioned a very emotional John Ruetten about what he knew regarding the day Sherri was killed.
Ruetten denied killing his wife and agreed to undergo a polygraph examination, but the results came back inconclusive. However, he had a rock-solid alibi, according to the Rasmussen family attorney.
“He was at work that day,” John Taylor, the attorney, said. “He had left work. He had stopped to pick up his dry cleaning and then came back between 6:00 and 7:00 p.m. and found his wife murdered in the living room area of the house.”
In the eyes of Mayer, the lead detective, Ruetten was a grieving husband. Investigators said they didn’t feel he was hiding anything, and as far as they were concerned, he was not a suspect — and they told him so.
“I believe your house was burglarized today,” Mayer told Ruetten in the interrogation room. “Once those persons, or that person, or whoever was inside, I believe they were trying to steal your stereo and probably some other items.”
Not long after Rasmussen’s murder, investigators quickly pursued a new lead. Another burglary with a similar M.O. occurred in the same Van Nuys neighborhood.
A woman interrupted the burglary when she came home and found two men in her house, one of whom was armed. They fled, and witness sketches of the suspects were created. Even though the LAPD had these new suspects, there was no evidence directly tying anyone to Rasmussen’s murder. Sherri’s family and friends believed the motive to be personal. Her father, Nels Rasmussen, says he urged the police to investigate a disgruntled nurse Sherri had worked with, as well as Ruetten’s former lover, Stephanie Lazarus, whose name Rasmussen never knew. But the detectives continued to focus solely on the burglary theory.
At this point, detectives said they did not have a single witness, fingerprints, or murder weapon.
The case went cold until 2001, when the Los Angeles Police Department launched the LAPD’s Cold Case Unit. That year, detectives were given more than 9,000 unsolved murders spanning more than two decades, and Rasmussen’s case was one of them.
With new technology and a fresh set of eyes, cold case investigators took another look at the bite mark that was on Rasmussen’s forearm.
Detective Cliff Shepard was the lead officer who investigated the Rasmussen case for the unit.
“Up to that point, nobody else had looked at it other than Mayer and myself, really,” Shepard said. “When I was going back over the reports, they indicate that a bite swab had been collected,” Shepard said. “And when I looked at the evidence… no evidence for a bite swab. So, I checked with our property, they verified they did not have the swab booked with our evidence room. There’s no record of it.”
Shepard sought assistance from Jennifer Francis, a criminalist at the LAPD’s Scientific Investigation Division, to locate the swab, which she traced to a freezer at the L.A. County Medical Examiner’s Office.
The swab was sent out to forensics for analysis, which returned a DNA profile of an unidentified female but returned no match in law enforcement databases.
The DNA had given police a profile, but it did not provide a name. Even with this new information, the investigator’s theory remained that Sherri’s killer or killers were burglars. By 2005, Shepard had moved on from the Rasmussen cold-case investigation without identifying a suspect, even with the DNA profile.
“My biggest regret is not interviewing Ruetten. Not meeting with him and having a face-to-face,” Shepard said.
The case went cold until 2009 when Detective Jim Nuttall from the Van Nuys division took over the investigation with a fresh set of eyes.
One of the first things Nuttall noticed was the four-year-old DNA report by Francis indicating that a woman was present at the murder. He also thought the stereo equipment stacked by the door was suspicious, leading him to question the burglary theory.
After going back to speak with Sherri’s family and Ruetten, Nutall and his team of investigators compiled a list of five female suspects who were in Rasmussen’s orbit. Three of the five were immediately eliminated – Rasmussen’s sister, mother, and her close friend –after submitting DNA samples. The fourth suspect, a nurse with alleged tension with Rasmussen at her job, also was eliminated.
The fifth suspect was Stephanie Lazarus, Ruetten’s ex-lover from college. Ruetten told Detective Nuttall that he had already given Lazarus’ name to the LAPD 23 years ago. The conversation, however, was never documented.
Four months after reopening the Rasmussen case, Nuttall did something no other officer investigating Sherri’s murder had done: He took a hard look at Lazarus.
The decision was made to have a special surveillance unit follow Lazarus to observe her and obtain a DNA sample. After following her, the unit noticed she had thrown a cup away in a public trash can. They recovered the cup to test the DNA against that from the bite mark.
The DNA matched the bite mark on Rasmussen, providing detectives with the evidence they needed to arrest Lazarus. Lazarus was charged with Sherri’s murder and pleaded not guilty.
In February 2012, 26 years after the murder of Rasmussen, Lazarus stood trial at a courthouse in downtown Los Angeles. She was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to 25 years to life and an additional two years for the use of a firearm.
After her conviction, Lazarus continued to profess her innocence but changed her story in 2023 when she became eligible for parole.
“The only reason she confessed is because she wants to get out on parole,” Teresa Marie Lane, a sister of Rasmussen, said. “We really have to keep her in because she has no regard for what she did. She does not have remorse.”
(MORRIS COUNTY, N.J.) — The mayors of 21 towns in New Jersey are demanding action in a letter sent to Gov. Phil Murphy over the mysterious drones that have been spotted flying overhead in recent weeks.
Since mid-November, large drones of uncertain origin have been repeatedly spotted in the sky at night over central and northern New Jersey.
The drones, which are larger than the type typically used by hobbyists, have raised concerns due to their proximity to both a military installation and President-elect Donald Trump’s Bedminster golf course.
In the letter, the mayors in Morris County called for a full investigation into the drones “to determine the origin, purpose and compliance with applicable regulations.”
They also demanded the “implementation of measures to prevent unauthorized or unsafe drone operations” in Morris County going forward, and “clear communication to local officials, law enforcement and residents regarding the findings of this investigation.”
“While the benefits of drone technology are widely recognized when used responsibly and transparently, the lack of information and clarity regarding these operations has caused fear and frustration among our constituents,” the mayors wrote. “Despite inquiries made to relevant authorities, we have yet to receive satisfactory answers about the purpose, operators, or safety protocols governing these flights.”
The Federal Aviation Administration has imposed drone flight restrictions while authorities investigate.
Local police previously said there is no known threat to public safety.
“Morris County Sheriff James M. Gannon would like to inform everyone that the recent drone activity observed by many in our communities is being actively investigated. There is no advisable immediate danger to the public at this time,” the Morris County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.
Last week, multiple Morris and Somerset county officials said in a joint statement they would continue to monitor the drone activity.
“County and local law enforcement agencies are aware of the recurring reports of drone activity around Morris and Somerset counties, and acknowledge the public’s concern about these repeated sightings,” they said.
(NEW YORK) — The Federal Communications Commission unanimously voted Thursday to approve new rules requiring all wireless carriers to implement georouting for calls to the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline in a move it says will help “save more lives.”
“Time and again, across many different communities, I have heard stories of how important the 988 Lifeline is for individuals in need of support,” Commissioner Anna Gomez said during the FCC’s Thursday meeting. “Today we affirm the experiences of these individuals and take steps to enhance the lifesaving capability of this service.”
“Doing everything we can to ensure that individuals in a crisis can receive the support they need saves lives and is simply good policy,” she added.
When a person calls 988, that call is routed to one of the Lifeline’s 200-plus crisis centers around the United States. The new rules will require carriers to route calls based on where the call was placed, allowing for a more localized response. Since the three-digit number launched in July 2022, it has been using area code-based call routing.
“This is a mismatch I have long believed we should fix — and I believe we can save more lives if we do so,” FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said during the Thursday meeting. “Because if we get more people connected to the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, to resources that are local, we can help more people with more meaningful assistance in more places.”
Rosenworcel explained that when the original 10-digit Lifeline number was created in 2005, most calls came in on landlines, so area code routing made sense. Now, she said, almost 80% of calls come from cellphones, creating the need for georouting to provide localized care.
Advocates have called for georouting to be implemented for years, saying callers would benefit from localized follow-up care, though there have been some concerns about caller privacy. Under the new georouting system, calls will be routed based on the location of the cell tower that originates the call, as opposed to the precise location of the caller — a move meant to protect privacy, according to the FCC.
The order passed Thursday only requires georouting for phone calls to the Lifeline. There is currently no requirement for text contacts to the Lifeline to be georouted. However, the FCC also voted to propose and begin seeking comments on a rule that would require georouting for texts.
Phone calls accounted for about 72% of contacts to the Lifeline for the month of August, according to Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration data. Texts accounted for about 19% of August contacts. The remaining contacts come from web-based chat services, the data showed.
“We’re not going to stop working to improve the Lifeline until everyone gets access to the local help and resources that they need,” Rosenworcel said.
Last month, wireless carriers Verizon and T-Mobile implemented voluntary georouting for 988 calls placed on their networks — a move that accounted for about half of all calls to the Lifeline, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
“Around 80% of calls to the 988 Lifeline are done through wireless phones, and many people have phone numbers with different area codes from where they live, work or visit,” T-Mobile President of Technology Ulf Ewaldsson said at the time. “Georouting ensures that those seeking help will reach the available crisis center nearest their location for support. It’s about making sure help is there when and where it’s needed most.”
All national carriers will have 30 days to implement georouting for their 988 calls. Smaller providers will have 24 months.
Since the 988 launch, the Lifeline has fielded more than 10 million contacts.
If you are experiencing suicidal, substance use or other mental health crises, or are worried about a friend or loved one, please call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. You will reach a trained crisis counselor for free, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You can also go to 988lifeline.org.
