Thomas Markle sent back to jail after cutting off ankle bracelet during home detention

Résumé détaillé

Thomas Markle was returned to federal custody after violating his home-confinement terms. The court denied bond and ordered medical and psychiatric assessments.

Thomas Markle, an accused child sexual predator and the estranged father of Britain's Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle, was sent back to jail on Tuesday after cutting off an electronic ankle monitor he was ordered to wear as a condition of home confinement.

US Magistrate Judge Lindsay Griffin found that the father-in-law of Prince Harry had violated the terms of his pretrial release and ordered him returned to federal custody without bond at a hearing in Tampa, Florida, court records showed.

Thomas Markle, 82, was arrested and charged on Friday with a single federal count of possessing child sexual abuse material, including two explicit photographs of himself posing with a naked underage girl and other images of him with children in various stages of undress.

According to an FBI affidavit filed in court as part of the criminal complaint lodged against him, one of the photos showed a naked girl in a room that appears to be part of a motel chain in the Philippines, where Markle previously resided and where authorities initiated an investigation of him last month.

The affidavit says federal agents seized the material in question, includingphotographic slides, film negatives and books, from two storage units Markle had rented in Los Angeles since 2008.

Commenting on the case on Friday, FBI Director Kash Patel said Markle "targeted innocent children and sought to steal their innocence through his criminal actions."

Markle, who most recently resided at an assisted-living facility in Lakeland, Florida, near Tampa, denied possessing sexually explicit photos of children when such allegations first surfaced, telling the Daily Mail they were untrue and "sick lies."

No plea was entered during Markle's initial court hearing last Friday, and the judge permitted him to be released from custody on condition that he submit to home detention and the wearing of an electronic monitoring device.

But federal prosecutors said they asked the judge to revoke home-release and keep him locked up…

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