Clothing entrepreneur found dead

LOS ANGELES – Jonas Bevacqua, who co-founded the popular street clothing brand LRG in 1999 and presided over its rapid rise as a major fashion force among young people, was found dead Tuesday. He was 34.

Orange County sheriff’s officials said Bevacqua’s body was found in his Laguna Beach home.

“There were no obvious signs of the cause of death,” said sheriff’s spokesman Jim Amormino. He added that the county coroner would conduct an autopsy today.

According to the company’s Facebook page, Bevacqua and his business partner, Robert Wright, founded Lifted Research Group, known to patrons as LRG, with start-up capital raised in part from friends of Bevacqua’s adoptive father.

Bevacqua had dropped out of college and moved back home with his parents when he met Wright while working as a DJ at Southern California clubs. The two sketched out some of their earliest fashion ideas in his bedroom.

By 2006, LRG had annual sales of $150 million and was named by Entrepreneur magazine as No. 5 on its list of that year’s 500 fastest-growing companies.