Tampa: The 82-year-old estranged father of Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, was ordered into custody on Tuesday after removing an electronic monitoring device from his ankle, days after being charged with possession of child sexual abuse material.
Thomas Markle was arrested and appeared in federal court in Tampa, Florida, after authorities discovered that he had cut off the device at 1:45 am, First Assistant US Attorney Bill Essayli said.
“Release conditions are court orders, not suggestions,” Essayli said.
Markle's arrest on Friday in Lakeland, Florida, followed the seizure of approximately 78 items from storage units in the Los Angeles area, including slides, film negatives and books containing suspected child sexual abuse images, Essayli, a federal prosecutor in California, said.
Markle was living at a senior care centre at the time. However, US Magistrate Judge Lindsay Griffin agreed on Tuesday that he should now remain in custody. Authorities have not said where he will be held while his case proceeds ahead of a likely transfer to California.
In her written order, Griffin noted that Markle's ‘housing situation’ had become ‘untenable’, but did not elaborate. Defence attorney Mary Claire Wolf had sought to keep him out of custody but had not found a suitable place for him to stay, according to a hearing summary.
Essayli told The Associated Press that he did not know why the ankle monitor had been removed. It was also unclear where the device had been taken off. An email and phone message seeking comment from Wolf were not immediately returned.
A mental competency examination of Markle is also pending in the case.
He suffered a stroke earlier this year while living in the Philippines and had to have his left leg amputated. He subsequently returned to the US.
The British tabloid The Sun reported that Meghan's half-brother found a collection of child sexual abuse images while clearing out their father's home in the Philippines. The discovery led authorities to two storage units in California that Markle had rented since 2008.
Markle's daughter, Meghan, married Prince Harry at Windsor Castle in 2018. The couple has two children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet. Meghan is an American citizen and an actor who starred in the US television drama 'Suits'.
She recently said she was ‘deeply distressed’ by allegations that a collection of child sexual abuse images had been found at her father's former home. She also revealed that a letter containing ‘troubling allegations’ about him had been sent to police in London in 2019.
“It made troubling and disturbing allegations against my father, and I was given assurances that these were being investigated,” Meghan said of the letter.
“I hope it can now be understood that, despite certain media publications' distortion over the years, any distance from my father and my choice to not allow him to have contact with our children was for one reason: to protect them.”
