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It comes after the brand was forced to close following the deaths of four employees of COVID-19.
Scandal and scrutiny have a way of following Dov Charney, the former embattled founder and CEO of American Apparel. Following the news that his new company, Los Angeles Apparel (cue the thinking face emoji), was ordered to shut down in mid-July after four workers died of coronavirus-related illnesses and 375 employees tested positive for COVID-19, Daily Beast reports that the downtown-based brand recently nabbed a two-year contract to manufacture face masks for the U.S. Air Force.
Charney and Co. were granted the contract after being “certified as a ‘small disadvantaged business’, a designation intended to uplift entrepreneurs of color,” writes Daily Beast reporter William Bredderman. The Canada-bred, L.A.-based entrepreneur told the independent news publication that the certification was an error by the federal government, which “must have put that on [the records] on their own… To put it like we’re trying to trick people like we’re a minority — we don’t do that.”