Overview

• Federal prosecutors unsealed a 10-count indictment in Brooklyn charging Howard Rubin, 70, and former assistant Jennifer Powers, 45, with sex trafficking and transporting women for commercial sex acts, with Rubin also facing a bank fraud count tied to a Texas mortgage.
• FBI agents arrested Rubin at his home in Fairfield, Connecticut, for arraignment in Brooklyn on Friday, while Powers was arrested in Texas with an initial federal court appearance set for Monday in the Northern District of Texas.
• The indictment alleges a scheme from 2009 to 2019 that recruited women through social and modeling channels for encounters that began in luxury hotels and later moved to a Midtown penthouse bedroom converted into a red, soundproofed “dungeon” with BDSM equipment and an electrocution device.
• Prosecutors say the defendants used nondisclosure agreements to deter complaints, paid women via wire transfers or services such as PayPal and Venmo with structured amounts to avoid bank reporting, and spent at least $1 million operating the network; the sex-trafficking counts carry a mandatory minimum of 15 years and a potential life sentence if convicted.
• The case is being led by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of New York with the FBI and IRS-CI, includes an alleged 2018 incident in Las Vegas, and investigators are seeking information from additional potential victims.