By STEPHEN McGRATH
BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — Influencer brothers Andrew and Tristan Tate checked in at a police station near Romania’s capital on Monday, complying with judicial control requirements in the case in which they are charged with human trafficking and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women.
Outside the police station in Voluntari, self-described misogynist Andrew Tate told reporters, “I’m a free person who has not been convicted of anything,” and said he will “comply with all judicial authorities everywhere around the world because I’m completely innocent.”
The Tates, who are dual U.S. and British citizens, were arrested in Romania in late 2022 and formally indicted last year on charges that they participated in a criminal ring that lured women to Romania, where they were allegedly sexually exploited. Andrew Tate was also charged with rape. They deny all of the allegations against them.
“It doesn’t matter what you’re accused of, it matters what you are proven guilty to have done in a fair court of law,” Andrew Tate said on Monday. “Accusations mean nothing. It doesn’t matter how many times you repeat an accusation on the news. That is garbage.”
Early on Saturday, the Tate brothers returned to Romania on a private flight after spending weeks in the U.S., where they flew after a travel ban imposed on them was lifted last month. They remain under judicial control, which requires them to appear before judicial authorities in Romania when summoned.
Days after they arrived in Florida, on March 4, Florida’s Attorney General James Uthmeier said his office had opened a criminal investigation into Andrew and Tristan Tate. He said in a social media post that he directed his office to work with law enforcement to conduct a preliminary inquiry into the brothers.
Andrew Tate on Monday accused Florida’s governor of being “hijacked by the media” after they arrived in his state. “The media jumped on him and he didn’t realize I was an American citizen,” he said. “And now he understands he made a mistake … there’ve been some conversations and everything has been settled.”
The lifting of their two-year travel ban came after a Bucharest court in December ruled that a case against the brothers could not go to trial because of multiple legal and procedural irregularities on the part of the prosecutors.
That development was a major victory for the Tate brothers and a blow to Romania’s anti-organized crime agency DIICOT. The case, however, remained open.
Last August, DIICOT also launched a second case against the brothers, investigating allegations of human trafficking, the trafficking of minors, sexual intercourse with a minor, influencing statements and money laundering. The Tates have strongly denied those charges as well.
Andrew Tate, 38, a former professional kickboxer who has amassed more than 10 million followers on X, has repeatedly claimed that prosecutors in Romania have no evidence against him and that there is a political conspiracy to silence him.
The Tate brothers’ legal battles are not limited to Romania.
Four British women who accused Andrew Tate of sexual violence and physical abuse are suing him in the U.K. after the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to prosecute him.
In March last year, the Tate brothers appeared at the Bucharest Court of Appeal in a separate case after U.K. authorities issued arrest warrants over allegations of sexual aggression in a case dating back to the period from 2012 to 2015.
The appeals court granted the U.K. request to extradite the Tates, but only after legal proceedings in Romania have concluded.
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