Financier Howard Rubin charged with sex trafficking

Famed money manager Howard Rubin was arrested Friday morning on charges of sex trafficking and transporting women across state lines for commercial sex acts over the course of a decade, according to a new indictment.

Rubin participated in sex acts with the women in luxury hotels, and later, a rented penthouse apartment in Manhattan that was converted into a so-called “sex dungeon,” the court filing says.

“During many such encounters, Rubin engaged in conduct beyond the scope of the women’s consent,” an indictment alleges.

The 70-year-old Rubin, whose formal personal assistant, Jennifer Powers, was also arrested and charged in the case, is scheduled to be arraigned on Friday afternoon in federal court in Brooklyn, New York.

Rubin was arrested by FBI agents at his home in Fairfield, Connecticut. Powers was arrested in Texas.

Rubin was sued in 2017 by two self-identified Playboy models and another model from Florida, who claimed they were beaten, sexually abused and raped by Rubin in multiple incidents in New York City in 2016.

“As alleged, the defendants used Rubin’s wealth to mislead and recruit women to engage in commercial sex acts, where Rubin then tortured women beyond their consent, causing lasting physical and/or psychological pain, and in some cases physical injuries,” Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella said in a statement.

“Today’s arrests show that no one who engages in sex trafficking, in this case in luxury hotels and a penthouse apartment that featured a so-called sex ‘dungeon,’ is above the law, and that they will be brought to justice,” Nocella said.

“Human beings are not chattel to be exploited for sex and sadistically abused, and anyone who thinks otherwise can expect to find themselves in handcuffs and facing federal prosecution like these defendants,” he said.

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