Arrested in Romania for human trafficking and rape, brothers Andrew and Tristan Tate have been trying for a month to convince the judges that they are innocent, that the DIICOT prosecutors’ accusations are not backed up by evidence and that the investigators do not consider evidence that would show their innocence. In order to convince the judges that he did not rape the woman from the Republic of Moldova who filed a complaint against him, Andrew Tate told them how he met her in a London strip club and how she asked him to help her leave, but also what she ended up doing after coming to Romania. Andrew Tate claims that the woman asked him for a lot of money to buy a house for her sister in Chisinau, but also dreamed of a beach bar and a TV show „to become famous on TikTok”.
British millionaires Andrew and Tristan Tate have been under arrest in Romania since the 30th of December 2022, in a case opened nine months ago, in which prosecutors from the Directorate for the Investigation of Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) have charged them with establishing a criminal group and trafficking in human beings by exploiting various women in a videochat studio.
Andrew Tate is also accused of rape, by the woman from the Republic of Moldova, who filed a complaint shortly after the first raids on the Tate brothers’ villa in Pipera and their videochat studio in April 2022.
Although there were rape and kidnapping charges, the DIICOT prosecutors did not arrest brothers Andrew and Tristan Tate until the 29 December 2022, when they raided their villa and videochat studio for the second time. Georgiana Naghel and former policewoman Luana Alexandra Radu, who, according to prosecutors, helped the two British millionaires to exploit young girls at the videochat studio, were also detained and charged.
The Tate brothers did not succeed in convincing the court to release them either on the 30th of December 2022, at the Bucharest Court, or on the 10th of January, at the Court of Appeal, both courts judging that the facts of which they are accused are of a particular gravity, and that their release would disturb public order, all the more so as they are internationally known persons and have had a particular exposure both in the press and on social media platforms.
Heard at the Bucharest Court of Appeal on 10 January, brothers Andrew and Tristan Tate defended their innocence before the two judges with two surprising statements.
Gândul found out what Andrew and Tristan said in court when they challenged their pre-trial detention.
Outraged by the situation he finds himself in, Andrew Tate said he respects the judges’ time and that it would take him hours to be able to dispel the myth of the 75 mistakes that „are like a Shakespeare play”. He stressed that he would do this in writing.
Andrew Tate added that the DIICOT had allegedly „focused on a very narrow channel that it went down in building this case and lied by omission, disregarding the evidence that is in his favour”.
In addition, Andrew Tate also told the judges how he met one of the victims in the case, namely the woman from the Republic of Moldova who accused him of rape. The Brit said he met A. in London, where she worked in a strip club and had a drug problem, she asked him to take her to Romania and he agreed.
Andrew Tate pointed out in court that the woman came to Romania alone and she asked him to live with her. Once here, however, knowing she was a drug addict, he told her to stay close to his assistant, Georgiana Naghel.
Andrew Tate also told judges that the woman sent him messages every day for 12 hours, but although they existed, prosecutors, who had access to them, ignored most of them, considering „only small fragments”.
Another interesting aspect that Andrew Tate explained about the woman from the Republic of Moldova who accuses him of rape in a complaint in the DIICOT file is that she asked him for money, „to open a bar on the beach, to act in a TV show and to become famous on TikTok”. Moreover, the woman allegedly demanded, according to Andrew Tate, 200,000 euros „to get a house for her sister in Chisinau”.
Andrew Tate also told the judges that he used to meet A. two or three times a week and at one point he noticed that money was missing from his room.
After a while, Andrew Tate said, he found out the woman was a prostitute and asked her to leave, telling her that he wants nothing to do with her anymore. In that context, the woman allegedly told him that if he was going to leave, he had to give her the money for her sister’s house, but Andrew Tate claims he refused.
” When I refused to give her the money, within 48 hours she filed a complaint with the DIICOT telling an imaginary story and then left the country “, Andrew Tate told judges at the Bucharest Court of Appeal on the 10th of January, when the court heard and rejected his appeal against the pre-trial detention decision of the 30th of December 2022.
Finally, Andrew Tate argued that „this is not justice” and that „the phantasmagoric history lacking factual evidence will not last long, it’s time for this circus to end”.
According to judicial sources, the woman from the Republic of Moldova who stayed in the Tate brothers’ house for about six months, from November 2021 to April 2022, when the first searches were carried out in the human trafficking case, is the one who told DIICOT that she had been raped by Andrew Tate at a hotel in Bucharest, then she was raped again in the house in Pipera, but „on a date she does not remember”.
In his turn, Tristan Tate told the judges that he has founded non-profit organizations in Romania and helps people who are abused, and so far, no one has proven that he can be called a human trafficker.
Less irritated than his brother, Tristan Tate told the Bucharest Court of Appeal that „his life may be destroyed, but not his character” and that he would continue to „politely address the prosecution and thank the woman in custody who brings him the meals”.
Tristan Tate added that the only thing that will be destroyed in the story written by the prosecutors is „the international reputation of the Romanian judicial system”.
In court, the DIICOT prosecutor who heard the appeal on the 10th of January argued that there were no forensic documents on file because „the defendants acted cunningly, leaving no trace”.
Brothers Andrew and Tristan Tate, together with Georgiana Naghel and Luana Alexandra Radu, were issued their first preventive arrest warrants on the 30th of December 2022, after being detained by the DIICOT prosecutors the day before, following searches of their villa in Pipera and their videochat studio.
On the 20th of January, at the request of the prosecutors, the Bucharest Court extended their preventive arrest warrants for another 30 days, from the 29th of January to the 27th of February. Although the decision is not final and has already been challenged by the Tate brothers’ lawyers, they remain in custody at least until the 28th of January, the last day of the first arrest warrant.
On Friday, the Bucharest Court of Appeal is due to decide whether Andrew and Tristan Tate and their two accomplices will remain in pre-trial detention or will be released or placed under house arrest from the 29th of January.
The DIICOT prosecutors succeeded in convincing the judge at the Bucharest Court to extend the Tate brothers’ arrest warrants, arguing that, left free, they „could exercise psychological control over the victims”.
Prosecutors also claim that brothers Andrew and Tristan Tate could flee Romania if they were released from custody. In this context, the DIICOT prosecutors made use of an earlier statement by one of the two eccentric millionaires, in which he indicated that he had accounts in 19 countries around the world and could fly using several passports.
„If I’m wrong and England wants me in jail, I can fly with a Nigerian or American or English or Polish or Estonian passport. I have bank accounts in 19 countries,” the prosecutors quoted the statement of one of the Tate brothers in their report.
The arguments and evidence presented by the DIICOT prosecutors convinced the Bucharest Court to extend their preventive arrest warrants for another 30 days, and the judge considered that their release „would create real risks for the proper conduct of the criminal trial”.
Andrew and Tristan Tate are accused of „setting up an organized criminal group in 2021, with a view to committing the crime of trafficking in human beings on the territory of Romania and other countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom”.
„The victims were then transported and housed in buildings in Ilfov county where they were physically abused and psychologically coerced (through intimidation, constant surveillance, control and the allegation of debts), they were sexually exploited by members of the group by being forced to engage in pornographic acts with a view to producing and disseminating material of such a nature via social media platforms and by being forced to perform forced labor in order to obtain significant financial benefits consisting in sums of money obtained as a result of users accessing the material”, according to the DIICOT.
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