Dhe British-American influencer Andrew Tate, his brother Tristan and two suspected Romanian accomplices are on trial in Bucharest for sexually exploiting women. The special unit of the Romanian public prosecutor’s office (DIICOT), which is responsible for organized crime, said it had completed the investigation on Tuesday and sent the indictment to the court. A first hearing date was not initially announced.
The prosecutors had recently expanded the allegations against the four: The initially known crimes of human trafficking and rape are said to have been committed not just once, but “in a continuous manner”, said DIICOT. The accused face up to 13 years in prison for founding an organized crime group.
The four suspects were arrested on December 30, 2022 in the Bucharest suburb of Voluntari. At the end of April, the pre-trial detention was changed to house arrest.
Prosecutors allege that the Tate brothers and their accomplices coerced young women to appear in commercially distributed sex videos. To do this, they are said to have used the so-called loverboy method: they used manipulation techniques to make the girls dependent on them by feigning feelings and a relationship. They were later said to have been intimidated, constantly monitored and also subjected to physical violence.
Guns, cash and luxury cars confiscated
Some of the victims are said to have threatened and blackmailed them. One of the Tate brothers’ two alleged Romanian accomplices was a former police officer. So far, seven victims have been identified. The Tate brothers deny the allegations.
When they were arrested, investigators discovered guns and large sums of cash in the Tate brothers’ mansion. Ten properties and 15 luxury cars owned by the Tates in Romania were later confiscated.
Former kickboxer Andrew Tate rose to prominence in 2016 when he was kicked out of Britain’s Big Brother show after a video leaked of him beating a woman with a belt – allegedly consensually, it was later said. As an influencer, he had always staged himself with misogynist statements and claimed, among other things, that women were partly responsible for rape. Last summer, his accounts were blocked on Instagram, Facebook and Titkok, among others, for violating the terms of use.
The British newspaper Guardian quotes a spokesman for the brothers as saying: “We are delighted at the opportunity to demonstrate that they are innocent.” Andrew Tate himself shared several posts on his Twitter account on Tuesday in which fans showed their solidarity with him .
#Tate #brothers #investigation #closed #trial #pending