Just days after a judge allowed him to await trial under strict conditions, the Duchess of Sussex’s father has been taken back into custody after allegedly cutting off his electronic monitoring tag.
Thomas Markle Sr had been released on bail on Friday on the basis that he would remain under house arrest and wear a location-tracking device.
A court in Tampa, Florida, also imposed travel restrictions as part of the release conditions.
Those terms quickly came under scrutiny after first assistant US attorney Bill Essayli posted on X that the monitoring requirement had been breached.
“Four days ago, a federal judge allowed Mr Markle to remain out of custody pending trial.
“He was ordered to wear a location monitoring device.
“He allegedly cut the bracelet off at 1.45am last night.
“Release conditions are court orders, not suggestions.
“We are asking the court to revoke his release and detain him pending trial, and we will continue to prosecute this case to the fullest extent of the law.”
US Magistrate Judge Lindsay Saxe Griffin of the Middle District of Florida later ordered Mr Markle to be held in custody.
Mr Markle Snr was arrested by FBI agents following the seizure of what authorities described as a significant cache of material from two Los Angeles storage units he had rented for nearly two decades.
He faces one count of possession of child pornography.
The investigation was triggered after his son, Thomas Markle Jr, reported him last month to police in the Philippines and to the FBI, after allegedly discovering illegal images among his father’s belongings in Cebu City.
Mr Markle Jr told The Sun newspaper that he had alerted investigators to the Los Angeles storage facilities.
Armed with warrants, FBI agents searched the units registered to Mr Markle Sr. Records show he had leased them since 2008 and that his most recent payments for both were made last month through auto-pay.
Agents seized about 78 items, including slides, film negatives and books that they say contained suspected child sex abuse material.
According to the allegations, two images show an adult man—whom a witness “positively identified” as Mr Markle—with a nude young girl.
One image, court documents say, depicts a man who “appears to be in the age range of 30s to 40s”, a detail that would place the alleged abuse decades in the past because Mr Markle is now 82.
A third image is alleged to show a nude young girl in a room that appears to be part of a motel chain in the Philippines.
Other photographs are said to include Mr Markle pictured with children in different stages of undress.
If convicted, Mr Markle would face at least 20 years in federal prison.
Mr Markle Sr, who was living in a dementia care home in the US, has acknowledged paying for sex in the Philippines but has denied ever possessing child abuse imagery.
His daughter Meghan, who moved back to the UK with her husband Prince Harry in August, said she was “deeply distressed” by the allegations against her father, from whom she has been estranged since the period leading up to her 2018 wedding.
She has said she received a letter in 2019, delivered via the Metropolitan Police and Royalty and Specialist Protection, containing what she described as “troubling and disturbing allegations” about her father, and that she was assured the claims were being investigated.
The Met has since acknowledged it did not pass the details to other law enforcement agencies. The police watchdog, the Independent Office for Police Conduct, is now examining the force’s conduct.
Sources said the duchess wanted to “speak out” as soon as she read the letter but was advised by police not to do so.
After the former TV lighting director had his leg amputated in the Philippines last year, Mr Markle Sr publicly appealed for the duchess to get in touch.
Meghan is said to have sent him a final letter stating that she knew he was an abuser and that he would never see his grandchildren, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet.
