Two young women who denied being trafficked by Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan did not understand that they were enslaved as they had been brainwashed, a Romanian court has ruled.
The two women both claimed that they worked voluntarily for Andrew and Tristan Tate but a report prepared by a clinical psychologist said they were both left with trauma and did not recognise that they were being exploited.
Andrew Tate, 36, and his brother Tristan, 34, were arrested in December on suspicion of human trafficking, rape, and forming an organised crime group to exploit women.
The brothers and their alleged female accomplices – separate from the two outlined in the clinical psychologist’s report – appeared at the Bucharest court yesterday where their appeal against a judge’s decision to extend their arrest a second time was turned down.
The clinical psychologist’s assessment was described as extrajudicial evidence but judges at the Bucharest Court of Appeal did take the report into consideration over yesterday’s decision.
One of the two women is originally from the US and had been attracted to Romania by Tristan Tate, the court heard.
The Romanian prosecutors considered the two women as victims of the Tate brothers despite their claim that they worked voluntarily for the two men.
The magistrates took the clinical psychologist’s report into account and ruled that they did not speak knowingly and had been brainwashed through their exploitation.
The court said this was due to the brothers’ recruitment process of making their alleged victims ‘fall in love’ with them, where they falsely claimed to want a relationship or marriage.
The Romanian court ruled: ‘Although the named [woman one] and [woman two], both in the statements given before the criminal investigation bodies, as witnesses, and through the authenticated statements given before the notary and submitted by the defense to the case file, denied any form of exploitation on the part of the four defendants, the collegial panel of rights and freedoms appreciates that these statements do not reflect reality.
‘It is known that, in the case of the ‘lover boy’ or ‘by falling in love’ recruitment method, the victims of human trafficking do not always recognize the fact that they were enslaved and exploited and do not cooperate with the judicial bodies, attesting to the idea that these activities were carried out voluntarily.’
The Tate brothers and their alleged accomplices, Georgiana Naghel and Launa Radu, continue to deny any wrongdoing.
As Tate was escorted from the Bucharest Court of Appeals with his brother yesterday besides the alleged female accomplices, he shouted at reporters: ‘You will find out the truth of this case soon’.
The self-proclaimed misogynist insisted there was ‘no evidence’ he exploited young girls and forced them to create pornographic content on webcams.
‘Ask them for evidence and they will give you none because it doesn’t exist,’ Tate shouted as he was escorted from the court into a police van. ‘You will find out the truth of this case soon.’
Following the court’s decision yesterday, the four will now remain in custody until February 27.
Romanian prosecutors said the Tate brothers recruited their victims by seducing them and falsely claiming to want a relationship or marriage.
The victims were then taken to properties on the outskirts of the capital, Bucharest, and coerced to produce pornographic content for social media sites that generated large financial gain, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors can now ask the courts to extend the suspects’ detention for up to 180 days.
The two Tate brothers moved into a converted warehouse in Romania in 2017, which was encircled with armed guards.
At the safehouse on the outskirts of Bucharest, the Tate brothers had a video chat studio where several women were found during a police raid in April 2022.
Prosecutors claim the brothers lured women into the studio where they were sexually exploited through ‘acts of physical violence and mental coercion (through intimidation, constant supervision, control and invocation of alleged debts)’, and made to produce and share pornographic material.
Andrew Tate is also accused of raping a Moldovan woman, who he alleges followed him from London, in March 2022, which he categorically denies.