Thomas Markle, the estranged father of Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, cut an electronic monitoring device off his ankle days after his arrest on charges of possessing child sexual abuse material, authorities said.
Mr. Markle, 82, was arrested shortly after cutting off the ankle bracelet at 1:45 a.m. Tuesday and is in custody awaiting a hearing in federal court in Tampa, Florida.
Mr. Markle was arrested Friday at a senior care center in Lakeland, Florida, after dozens of slides, film negatives and books containing suspected child sexual abuse images were found in a Los Angeles storage unit he rented.
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Authorities took him from the senior care center by ambulance, and a judge released him hours later on the condition that he be electronically monitored and ordered a mental competency exam with a report by Nov. 20.
Meghan said recently that she was “deeply distressed” by the allegations and revealed that a letter containing “troubling allegations” about him was sent to police in London in 2019 and that she was assured they were being investigated.
“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,” the duchess said in a statement.
Mr. Markle previously lived in the Philippines. He returned to the U.S. after suffering a stroke, a major blood clot and a leg amputation.
Meghan’s half-brother, Thomas Markle Jr., 60, found a collection of child sexual abuse images while clearing out their father’s home in the Philippines, which led to information about two U.S. storage units in California that Mr. Markle Sr. had rented since 2008.
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