The 82-year-old estranged father of Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, was ordered to jail Tuesday because he removed an electronic monitoring device from his ankle, just days after he was charged with possession of child sexual abuse material.
Thomas Markle was arrested and appeared in federal court in Tampa, Florida, after authorities learned 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 that contained suspected child sexual abuse images, said Essayli, a federal prosecutor in California.
Markle was living in a senior care center at the time. But US Magistrate Judge Lindsay Griffin agreed Tuesday that Markle now must be kept in custody. Authorities have not said where he will be held while his case remains in court ahead of a likely transfer to California.
The Sun, a British tabloid newspaper, reported that Meghan’s half brother found a collection of child sexual abuse images while clearing out their father’s home in the Philippines. That discovery led to information about the two US storage units in California, which Markle had rented since 2008.
