Sex accusers of ex-Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries have revealed details about his alleged sick “fantasy land” world, claiming he attacked them in homes staged to look like A&F storefronts.
A man identified only as Luke told the BBC last month that he was 20 when Jeffries, then in his 70s, sexually assaulted him in 2011 in a presidential hotel suite — which was made to look “like a movie set of an Abercrombie store.”
Luke said the room at the hotel in Madrid, Spain, had mood lighting, photos hanging on the wall of shirtless men flaunting their abs — and a group of guys standing around dressed in the iconic preppy A&F look folding clothes on a table as if they were working inside one of the stores.
He said he was told by the assistants to pretend to be one of the shirtless greeters at a store and that he’d need to impress “two very important guests.”
Jeffries and his “romantic partner’’ Matthew Smith — both of whom were arrested on sex-trafficking raps Tuesday along with the pair’s alleged recruiter — then came into the room and started groping and kissing him, Luke alleged.
“I was trying to avoid the whole situation as much as I could, but Michael was very aggressive,” Luke told the outlet.
Jeffries then allegedly performed oral sex on him while Luke said no “repeatedly.”
Jeffries, now 80, his British boyfriend Smith, 61, and “recruiter” James Jacobson, 71, are accused of preying on more than 12 young male aspiring models for their own sexual pleasure in a trafficking and prostitution ring that they ran for nearly 10 years.
Some accusers had their penises painfully iinjected with a substance they were told was liquid Viagra and forced to undergo “high-pressured enemas administered by inserting a hose into the anus” during the sickos’ “sex events,” according to court documents.
Keith Milkie told the BBC last month that he was sexually attacked by Jeffries starting more than a decade ago, when he was a struggling 20-something model and the clothing exec was then in his 70s.
“I was in the bed putting on a fake smile, crying on the inside,” Milkie said.
Milkie said he was paid $24,000 at one point to take a seven-night cruise with Jeffries on the Queen Mary II cruise ship — which included the boozed-up CEO putting a “bleeding finger’’ inside him.
Jeffries also made him have sex with another guy despite Milkie’s protests, which the clothing bigwig ridiculed him over, the younger man said.
“Here I am in the middle of the ocean having this person four times my age in that position of power and influence belittle me to death and literally call me worthless … simply because I said no to something,” Milkie alleged.
“The personification of Mike Jeffries is Abercrombie. He had the hair plugs, the plastic surgery, he wore the clothes, he wore the flip-flops. I mean, you talk about power,’’ Melkie told the outlet of the former CEO — known for calling people “Dude.”
“He projected his image on the entire country. His places where he lived were literally an Abercrombie store,’’ Milkie said.
“It was like fantasy land.’’Milkie wrote on Instagram on Tuesday, “What an incredibly interesting morning with the breaking news of Abercrombie and Fitch.
“In speaking with @rianna_croxford for the BBC over this past year I wasn’t sure what would come of our conversations,’’ he wrote, referring to the expose that kicked off the FBI probe leading to Tuesday’s arrests.
“I simply felt a release and relief in finally telling a part of my story and having someone listen. A silence was broken,’’ Milkie said. “To live in a state of wanting to express, not knowing how or where, and not allowing it in either case for fear, is a hell.
“All I can say is this article was a small percentage of what needs telling as far as the industry overall.”
But another man, Diego Guillen, told the outlet he believes that he and the other men who attended the so-called “sex events” at the same time were “under no obligation, under zero pressure” and were paid “quite well” for their time.
“Michael and Matthew are high-profile gay men and liked having sex with young, handsome men,” Guillen said. “And being older, they knew that the real way to get this done was to be generous. “But with full consent and making sure that the [men] wanted it and liked it. And that’s it.”
Jeffries has been accused of running a “well-oiled machine” that lured men for abuse through “recruiters” — paid as much as $1,000 for referrals. The alleged victims were asked to attend sex parties at Jeffries posh homes and luxury hotels around the world — including in London, Paris and Marrakech.
The men — who believed attending the events would boost their modeling careers — would be forced to sign non-disclosure agreements promising to not reveal anything about the sordid soirees or they would face legal action. And they allegedly never received copies of the NDAs.
They would also be assigned a personal “groomer” to shave their body hair before being pressured into performing sex acts. And the men were allegedly paid for their participation.
David Bradberry, who has a 2023 lawsuit pending in Manhattan federal court against Jeffries and Smith, claimed middle-man Jacobson introduced him to Jeffries in 2010 when he was 23.
“Jim made it clear to me that unless I let him perform oral sex on me, that I would not be meeting with A&F or Mike Jeffries,” Bradberry told the BBC last year.
“I was paralyzed. It was like he was selling fame. And the price was compliance,” he said, noting that Jacobson led him to believe “this is where everybody gets their start.”
Then Bradberry attended a daytime party at Jeffries’ $29 million Hamptons home where he told Jeffries and Smith about wanting to become a model for A&F. Then Jeffries took “poppers” — or drug inhalants — before eventually having sex with Bradberry, the alleged.
Bradberry said he “didn’t feel safe to say ‘no’ or ‘I don’t feel comfortable with this’” because of the sense like he was isolated in the middle of nowhere.
Another alleged victim Barrett Pall told the BBC when he was 22 in 2011 he entered Jeffries and Smith’s world and felt he couldn’t rebuff their sexual advances because a recruiter had been helping out a strapped Pall financially.
“The further you go, the better,” Pall recalled the recruiter telling him.
Pall said that Jeffries kissed and groped him while a chaperone watched in an encounter that “broke me.”
On Tuesday, Jeffries’ lawyer Brian Bieber said: “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.”
-Additional reporting by Reuven Fenton