Tate brothers’ lawyer urges U.S. judge to release brothers on bail from Miami jail

Open this photo in gallery:Supporters of brothers Andrew and Tristan Tate protest against the detention of the Tate brothers, outside the Wilkie D. Ferguson Jr. United States Courthouse during a hearing for the Tate brothers in Miami, Thursday.GIORGIO VIERA/AFP/Getty ImagesA lawyer for social media influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate urged a U.S. judge on Thursday to release the brothers on bail from a Miami jail as they contest extradition to Britain, where they are wanted on rape charges. Howard Srebnick, a lawyer for the Tate brothers’ told Miami-based U.S. Magistrate Judge Lauren Louis that they had regularly appeared in court in Romania, where they are on pretrial release, which he said was evidence they were not a flight risk. “The brothers have been fully compliant with their conditions of release,” Srebnick said. Andrew Tate, 39, and Tristan Tate, 38, wore beige prison garb and sported beards to their hearing.They were arrested in Miami on July 18 after Britain requested their extradition to face charges of rape, assault and facilitating trafficking for sexual exploitation. The Tate brothers, who have dual U.S. and British citizenship, have denied any wrongdoing.The arrests marked a new phase in the legal troubles for the former kickboxers, who have built a large online following promoting their views on masculinity and wealth. Andrew Tate has previously described himself as a misogynist.The Tates recruited dozens of women to work for a webcam pornography business starting in 2014, and later ran online courses called “Hustler’s University,” prosecutors with the Miami U.S. Attorney’s office said in an Aug. 10 court filing. The prosecutors said in court filings there was a strong presumption in favor of dfavourion in international extradition cases. They said the Tates could pose a danger to the community if released, citing British authorities’ allegations that they strangled victims during forcible rapes, and that they could try to flee. The prosecutors also pointed to allegations by authorities in Romania, where the brothers face human trafficking charges, that they sought to influence witnesses’ statements while released on judicial supervision there. Romanian authorities say the Tates threatened to release private information about alleged victims and bribed an alleged victim, the U.S. prosecutors said. The brothers’ defence lawyers have said in court filings there was no need to keep them behind bars while the extradition process played out because their “extraordinary public visibility” would make it impractical for them to flee. They said the witnesses the Tates were alleged to have bribed were women who wanted to speak on their behalf, and said the Tates helped co-ordinate their travel to Bucharest and hired lawyers for them. The defence lawyers proposed that Louis release them on the conditions they post bond, surrender their passports and submit to location monitoring. The legal process for determining whether the Tate brothers may be extradited could take months. Britain has until Sept. 16 to submit its full extradition request to the State Department, U.S. court records show.The impetus for the brothers’ arrests in Miami was new charges brought by Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service relating to alleged offences involving four alleged victims between July, 2010 and August, 2017.They had previously faced rape and human trafficking charges in Britain related to three alleged victims, the CPS said. A British judge issued a warrant for their arrests in 2024. They have not appeared in British court to enter a plea to those charges.Britain is seeking to extradite the brothers to face both sets of charges.