Howie Rubin, prominent investment banker, charged with sex trafficking

(NEW YORK) — A retired investment banker was arrested Friday at his Connecticut home on federal charges he trafficked women for sex acts in luxury hotels and at a Manhattan apartment converted into a sex dungeon with BDSM equipment, according to a federal indictment.

Howie Rubin, 70, and his former personal assistant, Jennifer Powers, 45, are charged with sex trafficking and transportation for the purposes of prostitution, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York.

Rubin is due in Brooklyn federal court later Friday. Powers, who was accused of facilitating the alleged sex trafficking operation, was arrested in Texas.

It was not immediately clear whether either had retained counsel.

Rubin, a former top manager at Soros Fund Management and Bear Stearns, has been under investigation for years after multiple women claimed in 2017 he subjected them to beatings and rape. Rubin has long denied the accusations but the women won a multimillion dollar civil judgment against him for violating the Trafficking Victim Protection Act.

“For many years, Howard Rubin and Jennifer Powers allegedly spent at least one million dollars to finance the commercial sexual torture of multiple women via a national trafficking network,” FBI Assistant Director in Charge Christopher Raia said in a statement. “The defendants allegedly exploited Rubin’s status to ensnare their prospective victims and forced them to endure unthinkable physical trauma before silencing any outcries with threats of legal recourse.”

According to the criminal charges, from at least 2009 through 2019, Rubin recruited dozens of women to engage in commercial sex acts with him involving bondage, discipline, dominance, submission and sadomasochism.

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

The indictment includes ten women, identified as Jane Does #1 through #10, who allege Rubin “brutalized” them, causing them to fear for their safety and resulting in significant pain or injuries, which at times required women to seek medical attention.

Some of the women were former Playboy models targeted through social media or modeling pages, according to the indictment.

At first, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn said the commercial sex acts primarily occurred at luxury hotels in Manhattan. However, in 2011, Rubin leased a luxury penthouse apartment near Central Park.

According to the indictment, Rubin and Powers transformed one of the bedrooms in the penthouse into a sex “dungeon” that was painted red and soundproofed; had a lock on the door; was furnished with BDSM equipment to which women could be strapped and restrained; and contained devices to shock or electrocute them, among other items.

“Rubin and Powers, together with others, materially misrepresented to women the extent, manner and/or degree to which Rubin would engage in physical and sexual violence,” the indictment said. “Rubin provided a ‘safe word’ the women could say to convey that they wanted the violent sexual conduct to cease, but then disregarded the safe word when women used it and continued the violent conduct without the women’s consent.”

The indictment continued, “In other instances, regardless of whether Rubin had provided a safe word, the women were unable to object to Rubin’s conduct because they were bound and/or gagged during the sexual encounter. In still other instances, women became unconscious during the sexual encounters, such that they were unable to consent.”

Prosecutors said Rubin paid different women for commercial sex multiple times a week, sometimes on consecutive days and Powers would manage the fallout due to his alleged violence.

“If Rubin was satisfied with the way that the women had endured a sexual encounter, the women received $5,000 per encounter; if he was dissatisfied, he paid them several thousand dollars less,” the indictment said.