Ex-Abercrombie CEO Unfit to Stand Trial for Sex Trafficking

The former CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch has been found mentally unfit to stand trial in Central Islip federal court, where his lawyers are fighting allegations that he led a Hamptons-based sex trafficking ring.

U.S. District Court Judge Nusrat Choudhury issued an order on May 2 ordering the hospitalization of Michael Jeffries — who pleaded not guilty to federal sex trafficking charges along with two codefendants following his October arrest — after doctors found he is not presently competent to proceed due to dementia.

“The defendant is presently suffering from a mental disease or defect rendering him mentally incompetent to the extent that he is unable to understand the … consequences of the proceedings against him or to assist properly in his defense,” Choudhury wrote in the order.

Prosecutors have said that Jeffries, who ran Abercrombie & Fitch between 1992 and 2014, along with his life partner Matthew C. Smith, and associate James T. Jacobson, allegedly forced at least 15 men over a seven-year period into being part of an international sex trafficking and prostitution business involving Jeffries’s Water Mill home.

Choudhury ordered that Jeffries be committed to the custody of the U.S. Attorney General for four months to determine whether his competency may be restored so the court proceedings can resume. Prosecutors and the defense can seek periodic updates on Jeffries’ condition during his custodial hospitalization, but psychiatrists indicated in their report that his cognition is expected to continue declining. If his condition does not improve, the charges may be dropped.

“At the end of the specified period, Mr. Jeffries requests that the court permit him to be released to home confinement on the same conditions of pretrial release he is currently subject to, pending further proceedings by this court,” defense attorneys Brian Bieber and Alek Ubieta wrote in a letter to the judge.