NBC News reports:

Michael Jeffries, the former CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch who was charged with running an international sex trafficking scheme over several years while he ran the company, is mentally competent for trial, a federal judge ruled. Jeffries’ legal team had previously argued that he was unfit to stand trial due to dementia and late-onset Alzheimer’s disease, prompting the court to order him to be hospitalized to evaluate his mental fitness.

U.S. District Judge Nusrat Choudhury said Jeffries’ 109 phone calls made during his four-month stint at the federal medical center to be “particularly illuminating.” Choudhury pointed to a recorded phone call, where Jeffries told his partner that he was concerned about going to trial and that, if he were found guilty, “they’ll take all our money away.”

Jeffries, 82, along with his partner, Matthew Smith, and an alleged recruiter, James Jacobson, were federally charged in 2024 for operating a global sex trafficking and prostitution business from 2008 to 2015. Federal prosecutors claimed that Jeffries leveraged his wealth and power as Abercrombie’s CEO to coerce dozens of men into having sex with him and Smith.

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