Details on the case police are building against Andrew Tate (Update: 'virtual character')

AP Photo/Alexandru Dobre

Last month a judge extended Andrew Tate’s detention for an additional 30 days (to February 27th). This is the second 30-day extension that has been granted since his arrest. His attorneys appealed the first extension and lost. This week they appealed the second extension and lost again.

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Andrew Tate will remain behind bars after losing his appeal against a second 30-day detention this week as new details emerged about the sex-trafficking claims against him…

A judge ruled that they had to be held in part because of the “particular dangerousness of the defendants.”

On his way into court, Tate — who was handcuffed to his 34-year-old brother, Tristan — had yelled “You know I’m innocent,” while maintaining evidence “doesn’t exist.”

This isn’t the first time Tate has proclaimed his innocence but thanks to a leaked court ruling from December we’re now getting a better sense of the case authorities are building against him and his brother. It includes two allegations of rape made by a Moldovan woman who was living in London when Tate first contacted her on Instagram.

Evidence included in the 67-page court ruling included private messages between the Moldovan woman and Tate. Prosecutors have previously said Tate used a “lover boy” approach to the women he coerced into working for him and that seems to be true in this case. After some romantic back and forth they agreed to meet. And from there it was talk of marriage and a move:

The conversation quickly turned to a move to Romania, according to the court order. “So I can keep an eye on you,” Tate wrote in a message on Feb. 7, the court order states…

“I want to know that you are determined … serious about marriage,” Tate stated in one message, according to the court order.

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The woman assured him she was serious and did eventually travel to Romania where she wound up in a house where other women were making porn videos for TikTok and OnlyFans. The Moldovan woman told Tate this wasn’t what she had expected.

“I’m in the house,” the Moldovan woman messaged Tate, according to the court order. “I feel a bit strange … I wish you would tell it like it is so I know what’s going on … what do these girls do exactly?”…

“I thought I would come here and live with you,” she wrote the next day. “It’s a little strange to have you put me with girls who work for you.”…

In the messages reproduced in the court order, the woman tells Tate that she is being asked to make videos for TikTok.

“Just do it,” Tate responded, according to the court order. “It’s simple.”

Tate and his attorneys claim the women were free to leave at any time or call the police. But prosecutors found a message in which the Moldovan woman said she was thinking of walking into town alone. Tate said that was out of the question:

“NO,” Tate writes. “Going out alone … without telling me. Mall. Supermarket. NOWHERE. FROM NOW ON. It’s the last warning.”

That sounds a bit coercive to me. She definitely doesn’t sound free to go wherever she wants. The precise threat isn’t spelled out but I doubt the “last warning” was meant to be a good thing. Clearly if you crossed Tate or disobeyed him, something bad might happen.

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Reuters has a bit more from another (alleged) victim who was convinced to come to Romania by Tristan Tate:

According to prosecutors, the American woman – another of the alleged six victims – met Tristan Tate online in November 2021, then in person in Miami the following month. They said he lured her to Romania by expressing “false feelings” for her and promising a serious relationship, paid for her plane ticket and said he could help her earn “100K a month” on OnlyFans.

Tristan Tate picked her up at Bucharest airport in a Rolls-Royce on April 5 2022, and took her back to his house, which had two armed guards, the court document said.

He told her she wasn’t a prisoner but said the guards wouldn’t let her outside without his permission, it added. He said it was dangerous for her to leave “because he had enemies”.

There were cameras all over the house, which Tristan Tate monitored remotely, prosecutors said in the document. He once messaged the American to say he could see where she was and what she was doing, they said.

When she moved to another house with four of Andrew Tate’s “girlfriends” she was allowed outside but only if accompanied by other women, said the prosecutors, adding that she was “very afraid” of the brothers.

Again, it does not sound like these women were free to go or do what they wanted. They were being monitored like they were pro-democracy protesters in China.

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The OnlyFans accounts weren’t in Tate’s name but were controlled by the two women who worked with the Tate brothers. They allegedly took half the revenue the women generated. The women were fined if they started work late or if they cried on camera.

The Tates haven’t been charged yet but the prosecutors can continue extending their detention a month at a time for up to 180 days. So this could go on for a few more months but it seems likely they will face charges eventually.

Update: This is interesting. Reuters reports Tate’s lawyers are claiming his public persona is just a character.

In the court document, lawyer Vidineac said Tate’s online persona was a “virtual character” constructed to gain followers and make money, and had “nothing to do with the real man”.

I’d love to see Tate tell his followers that he’s playing a virtual character.

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