They said Abercrombie wanted a look at you. What happened next wasn't okay.

You know the Abercrombie & Fitch store. You may have worn the clothes. The man who ran it from 1992 to 2014 is charged with sex trafficking, and the men in the indictment got there the way you may have. A recruiter, maybe a message off a modeling site, maybe a friend who knew a guy. A tryout. Then a plane ticket, and an itinerary that read like a photo shoot, and at the end of it the Hamptons, or London. If that's yours, some year between 2008 and 2015, and you never told a soul, then yes, this is about you. A federal grand jury said it about fifteen men in October 2024. Prosecutors say dozens. And the company that made him famous is a defendant in the civil cases.

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6 questions. Your answers are private and go to one person.

This applies to you no matter what

You were paid. Every man the BBC spoke to was. The indictment says so too, and still calls it trafficking, because under federal law the question isn't the money. It's the force, the fraud, the coercion.
You signed something. The indictment says the men were made to sign non-disclosure agreements that barred telling even family, and lists those papers among the scheme's tactics, not as your promise. California's new revival law names NDAs as a form of cover-up.
You went more than once. Some men did, the indictment says. It changes nothing about whether you can ask.
You never said no out loud. One man told the BBC he tried to, repeatedly, and was talked past it. The charge is built on men who were pressured, misled, or given things that left them unable to refuse.
It was the tryout, not the event. The indictment says the recruiter typically required a sexual encounter before a man was even considered. If it stopped there for you, say so. It counts.
You live in Ohio, California, Florida, New Jersey, anywhere. The men were flown in from everywhere. Where you are now is not the question. Where and when it happened is.

The Abercrombie & Fitch and Jeffries record: what is public, and when

None of this is ours. It comes from a federal indictment, two federal judges' orders, filed complaints and the reporters who read them, and every line links to its source. Michael Jeffries, Matthew Smith and James Jacobson are charged, not convicted; they have pleaded not guilty. Everything pleaded against Abercrombie & Fitch Co. in the civil cases is an allegation. The company denies it knew, and no court has ruled on that.

October 2, 2023

The BBC published a two-year investigation, The Abercrombie Guys. Twelve men described attending or organising sex events for Jeffries and his partner between 2009 and 2015, in his New York homes and in hotels in London, Paris, Venice and Marrakesh; eight said a middleman recruited them, several said modeling for A&F was dangled, half said they were misled about what the events were. Journalism, not a court record, and we cite it as that. A&F's response: it was "appalled and disgusted," it said, and it brought in an outside law firm to investigate. BBC News.

October 27, 2023

David Bradberry had told the BBC he was 23 when he was recruited. Now he sued, as a class. The caption is Bradberry v. Abercrombie & Fitch Co., Michael S. Jeffries, Matthew Smith and The Jeffries Family Office, LLC, No. 1:23-cv-09440, Southern District of New York, and it pleads the federal trafficking statute for all men abused or trafficked while Jeffries was CEO, 1992 through 2014, a class "believed to exceed one hundred," and alleges Abercrombie "knew that it was providing the financial lifeblood" for the operation, gave Jeffries "unfettered access" to corporate funds, a jet and staff, "turned a blind eye," and, on information and belief, paid settlements over his conduct. Complaint, S.D.N.Y. 1:23-cv-09440.

November 2023 to January 2024

A&F told the BBC it had suspended about $1 million a year in extra retirement payments to Jeffries. In January 2024 all three defendants moved to dismiss the Bradberry case: Jeffries "vehemently denies every allegation"; Smith said the claims concern 2010 and had been "time-barred since 2011"; A&F said "nothing in the complaint plausibly alleges that the company was aware of, participated in, or had anything to do with the exploitation alleged." Jeffries, separately, sued A&F in Delaware over his legal bills, and a court later ordered the company to pay them. BBC News.

October 17 to December 3, 2024

A federal grand jury in Central Islip returned a sixteen-count indictment, United States v. Jeffries, Smith and Jacobson, No. 2:24-cr-00423 (NJC), Eastern District of New York: one count of sex trafficking, fifteen of interstate prostitution, one per John Doe, conduct "approximately December 2008 to March 2015." It alleges the three "relied on their vast financial resources, JEFFRIES' power as the CEO of Abercrombie" and a network of staff and security; that Jacobson "typically required" a sexual "tryout"; that men were led to believe attending "could yield modeling opportunities with Abercrombie," got itineraries that "resembled those often sent to models for photo shoots," and had to surrender phones and sign NDAs. It does not charge the company or say it knew. Jeffries was arrested in Florida on October 22 and released on a $10 million bond. All three pleaded not guilty, Smith last, on December 3, before going to house arrest in Palm Beach. The maximum on the trafficking count is life. Indictment, E.D.N.Y. 2:24-cr-00423.

March 21, 2025

Lawyers told the BBC more than 40 men had now accused Jeffries of rape, sexual assault or drugging, some of them A&F employees at the time; Bradberry's lawyer said he represented 26 men in the class case. Two new suits had been filed in New York, one for two models who say it began at an A&F casting call at the Setai Hotel in Miami in 2011 and continued in the Hamptons. Prosecutors put the criminal case at 15 victims and were still interviewing witnesses. BBC News.

June 2, 2025, and March 31, 2026

The Miami casting-call case, Doe #1 and Doe #2 v. Abercrombie & Fitch Co., Jeffries, Smith and Jacobson, No. 2:25-cv-01105 (LDH), Eastern District of New York, was paused on June 2, 2025 until the criminal case ends, as the federal trafficking statute requires. On March 31, 2026 Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall refused to move it to Manhattan. The complaint alleges Jacobson told one man he "needed to make Jeffries and his partner happy in order to secure the gig." A&F denies liability. Nothing has been decided. Memorandum and Order, E.D.N.Y. 25-cv-01105.

August 20, 2026

Sixteen months after the case stopped, it started again. Judge Nusrat J. Choudhury ruled Jeffries competent to stand trial; the opinion runs 157 pages. It had been a long road there. On May 2, 2025 she'd found him incompetent, and from July 21 to November 21, 2025 he was at the federal medical center in Butner, North Carolina, where the evaluators came back saying his competency was restored, which led to four days of hearings in March 2026 and, finally, this. Her finding: "Jeffries clearly possesses a rational and factual understanding of the proceedings." The order records him describing the charges himself as "assault, essentially rape," about "young men." Opinion and Order, E.D.N.Y. 2:24-cr-00423.

August 27, 2026

Trial was set. Jury selection, Judge Choudhury said, would tentatively begin January 4, 2027, in the federal courthouse in Central Islip. It had been October 26; she moved it so a trial expected to run three months at least wouldn't land on the holidays. Jeffries is 82. All three men remain charged and not convicted. New York Daily News.

We checked this on September 12, 2026, and the newest thing in it is from August 27, 2026. When something new gets filed or decided, it goes in here within 72 hours, with the link.

Who can be held responsible in an Abercrombie & Fitch lawsuit

Start with the honest version. The criminal case is against three men. The indictment says Jeffries used his power as the CEO of Abercrombie, and that the company's name, clothes and campaigns were the bait, but it does not charge the company and does not say the company knew. Whether Abercrombie & Fitch Co. answers for any of this is what the civil cases were filed to decide. No judge has decided it.

Here is what those cases plead. That the men were recruited as Abercrombie models, dressed in Abercrombie clothes, sent Abercrombie gift cards and itineraries that looked like a shoot. That the recruiter told one of them he had to make Jeffries and his partner happy to get the job. That the company gave its CEO its jet, money and staff with little oversight and, the Bradberry complaint says on information and belief, paid people off over his conduct and kept him because he was the brand. The federal trafficking law, 18 U.S.C. 1595, reaches whoever "knowingly benefits" from a venture it "knew or should have known" was trafficking. That is the theory. A&F says it knew nothing until the BBC called in 2023. A court decides.

Two things about the defendant. Abercrombie & Fitch Co. is a public company on the New York Stock Exchange, based in New Albany, Ohio, with no bankruptcy and no cap on what a New York jury can award here. And the federal statute pays a winning plaintiff's attorney fees. That is what lets a lawyer take one man's case seriously.

Your deadline: the Abercrombie & Fitch dates, and why a lawyer has to look at yours

Nobody can grade your deadline off a web page. The dates are the whole question. The indictment puts the events between December 2008 and March 2015, and the men were adults, which shuts most of the easy doors. New York's long rule for adult sexual offenses, CPLR 213-c, gives twenty years and now reaches anyone whose "intentional or negligent acts or omissions" led to the conduct, not just the man himself. Two pieces of fine print. It covers named offenses, rape and criminal sexual act among them, not the word "trafficking," so whether what was done to you fits is a lawyer's reading. And the twenty years arrived in September 2019 and reach older conduct only if the old five-year clock hadn't already run. So, roughly. Late 2014, 2015: this rule may still have years in it for you. 2009, 2011: not under this rule, no. And the Adult Survivors Act, that one-year window for old adult claims, is gone; it closed November 24, 2023.

The federal door. Ten years from the violation is what the trafficking statute's civil remedy, 18 U.S.C. 1595, allows, and ten years from March 2015 came and went in March 2025. On its face that has run, even for the last events. Lawyers make arguments about clocks like that, and the filed cases are making them, but the argument is not the rule. And one more thing about that statute. It says a civil trafficking case has to wait while the criminal case runs. That's why the Doe case has been sitting since June 2025, and why a trial date in January 2027 matters to the civil plaintiffs as much as to anyone.

Two doors that depend on geography. Say your event was inside New York City, the Manhattan property and not the Hamptons house. Then there's a city law to ask about, Local Law 50 of 2026, the second gender-motivated violence window. It's open, it closes July 29, 2027, it covers conduct before January 9, 2022, and it was written to reach anyone who "enables" the violence, not only the man who did it. A caveat, though. The law is being challenged, and one Manhattan judge has already paused a claim under it while the state's highest court decides whether it stands. If California law reaches your case, because you were recruited or hurt there, AB 250 revives adult claims against a company that covered up, NDAs included, from January 1, 2026 to December 31, 2027. Neither is a promise. Both are dates a lawyer will want to know you have.

Your situation still qualifies even if

You were 19, or 25, or 30. Every man in this record was an adult. The laws above are the adult laws.
You don't remember the year. Pick the closest bucket. The itineraries and flights left a trail; the BBC recovered more than a dozen, the first off an iPad that wouldn't turn on.
You already talked to the FBI, or the BBC. That's separate from a civil claim and doesn't stop one.
You never got a modeling job out of it. Almost nobody did. The indictment says the opportunities "did not exist."
You were an Abercrombie employee, a store model, a greeter. Some of the 40 men were. Say so in the questions.
You met him in Madrid, or Marrakesh, or on a boat, not in New York. The questions still work.

Places covered

Water Mill, in the Hamptons. Manhattan. Those are the homes the indictment names, and then the hotels: England, France, Italy, Morocco, Saint Barthelemy. Miami too: the civil complaints describe a casting call at the Setai Hotel there in 2011. Men told the BBC about Madrid, and an ocean liner. And Abercrombie & Fitch Co. itself, the company, the defendant in the civil cases, has its address at 6301 Fitch Path, New Albany, Ohio. Maybe yours was none of those. A hotel room in your own city, a tryout, an approach that never got further than that. The questions still work. Answer them and say where.

Questions people are asking

Can I sue Abercrombie & Fitch over Mike Jeffries?

People have. The Bradberry class action (Manhattan federal court, October 2023) and the Doe case (Brooklyn federal court, 2025) both name Abercrombie & Fitch Co. under the trafficking statute's "knowingly benefits" clause. The company says it knew nothing, no court has ruled, and whether your own claim is in time depends on where and when it happened.

Was Mike Jeffries convicted?

No. He is charged. A grand jury indicted him, Matthew Smith and James Jacobson on October 17, 2024 on one count of sex trafficking and fifteen of interstate prostitution; all three pleaded not guilty. The case stopped for sixteen months over his competency; a judge found him fit on August 20, 2026, and jury selection is set for January 4, 2027. Until a verdict, these are allegations.

Is it too late to file an Abercrombie lawsuit?

For some men it may be, for others it isn't, and the difference is dates and places. New York's twenty-year rule may still reach late 2014 and 2015; the federal ten-year clock ran in March 2025 on its face; New York City's window is open to July 29, 2027 for events inside the city; California's to December 31, 2027 for cases its law reaches. That's not something anyone should work out from one paragraph on a website, you included.

Do I have to go public?

No. The men in the Doe case sued as John Doe #1 and #2, and the indictment names its fifteen men only as John Does. Your first call is with a survivor at ME2, not a lawyer, and nothing about it is public.

How much is the Abercrombie & Fitch lawsuit settlement?

None. Nothing has settled and nothing has been decided in either civil case; the Doe case is paused by law until the criminal trial is over. We won't put a number on this page, and be careful with anyone who does.

How much does a sexual abuse lawyer cost?

Nothing, here. Every case is on contingency. The lawyer is paid only out of what is recovered, and if nothing is recovered you owe nothing. Not for the call, not for the review, not for the case.

Who sees your form

Kerim Eravci · Survivor Advocate · Not a lawyer

I was a victim, and I waited. Not because I didn't know what happened to me (I knew every day), but because I'd decided it was over, mine to carry, nobody's business. When I finally went looking for a lawyer, the answer came back in two words I'd never thought about: statute of limitations. My time had run out while I was busy getting through it.

What that has cost me since is a long story, and I'll tell you the whole thing in private, if you want it. The short version is the reason my name is on this page: I'm here to help people do what I wish I'd done, which is find out where you stand while the door's still open.

I'm not a lawyer. I read what you send, I call you once, on your terms, and nothing gets filed unless you say so. Ask sooner than I did.

Kerim Eravci is not an attorney. He's a survivor.

What happens next. Three steps, nothing more until you say so.

You answer 6 questions. Nothing is filed. Nothing starts.
A survivor calls you, once. Not a robot, not a call center. Someone who has been where you are.
You decide. You find out your options. If you want to stop there, you stop there.

How this works

ME2 Survivors Alliance protects the heart. Licensed New York attorneys do the legal work. We are not lawyers and we don't pretend to be.

You never pay a dollar

Every case is on contingency. There is no charge for the call, the review, or the case. The firm is paid only out of a recovery, and if there is no recovery you owe nothing.