Former Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries’ Lawyers Question His Competency to Stand Trial
Attorneys for former Abercrombie & Fitch chief executive officer Mike Jeffries have filed an unopposed motion to determine his competency to stand trial.
Jeffries was arrested and charged in late October on one count of sex trafficking and 15 counts of interstate prostitution. In late October, he pled not guilty in federal court in Central Islip, N.Y., and is due back there next year.
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Jeffries’ romantic partner, Matthew Smith, faces similar charges, as does an alleged middleman James Jacobson, who is said to have recruited men to attend parties, where some have alleged they were forced to engage in commercial sex with Jeffries and Smith. Both men also pled not guilty at their arraignments.
The three men were said to have been part of a sex trafficking and interstate prostitution ring that lasted at least from the end of 2008 until early 2015. Jeffries, 81, is alleged to have spent “millions of dollars on a massive infrastructure” to support it and “hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash for commercial sex,” as well as money for travel, hotel rooms and a security company, according to U.S. attorney of the Eastern District of New York Breon Peace.
In a letter to the Hon. Nusrat Choudhury, who is overseeing the case, Jeffries’ lawyers Brian Bieber and Alek Ubieta requested the court to permit Jeffries to file his motion to determine competency without redactions, and order that two medical reports remain sealed. After being hired by Jeffries in September 2023, his attorneys said they questioned his attentiveness, focus, competency and understanding of the legal and factual issues being discussed, after their initial and lengthy consultation with him.
“The Michael Jeffries who presented himself did not even come close to resembling a master’s degree-educated individual, who was just nine years earlier the chief executive officer of a publicly traded company,” they said.
A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York had no comment on the filing Monday.
Brad Edwards, an attorney with Edwards Henderson, who is representing some of Jeffries’ “John Doe” accusers, did not respond immediately to a media request Monday afternoon.
The two lawyers attested that they questioned his “competency to rationally assist — on a sustained and consistent basis — counsel in connection with the possible factual and legal defenses to the allegations he was facing. As a result of that concern, the undersigned encouraged Mr. Jeffries to seek a neuropsychological evaluation and mental health therapy, if necessary.”
They said he underwent a full neuropsychological evaluation in October 2023 by Dr. Jacqueline C. Valdes, whose initial diagnostic impressions included, “but were not limited to, Jeffries’ cognitive impairment being consistent with dementia due to Lewy body dementia.” Thus, Valdes’ formal preliminary “diagnostic impression” at that time was probable Lewy body dementia. Follow-up testing in October 2024 led to diagnostic impressions that Jeffries currently suffers from “dementia with behavioral disturbance, Alzheimer’s disease with probable late onset, and possibly concurrently present Lewy body dementia.”
Valdes reported that the most debilitating factor in “Jeffries’ current (and future) cognitive and physical functioning is that he has a neurodegenerative disease which is irreversible and will continue to worsen over time,” according to the filing. Valdes also suggested that the defendant “may presently be suffering from a mental disease or defect rendering him mentally incompetent to the extent that he is unable to understand the nature and consequences of the proceedings against him or to assist properly in his defense.“
Jeffries’ legal team is asking the court to grant his unopposed motion to determine competency to stand trial, and enter the proposed sealed order submitted directing that Dr. Alexander Bardey, whom they have retained, and Dr. Cheryl Paradis, whom the government has retained, complete their respective competency evaluations of Jeffries’ alleged mental health issues, and prepare reports addressing their respective findings to determine Jeffries’ competency to participate in the legal proceedings.
The competency hearing is scheduled to be held over two days on June 16 and June 17 at the Alfonse D’Amato Courthouse in Central Islip, N.Y.
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