Source : Perth Now news
A romantic partner of Andrew Tate has testified on behalf of the social media influencer as he and his brother Tristan Tate seek release on bail from a Miami jail as they contest extradition to the United Kingdom, where they are wanted on rape charges.
Natasha Sesay, who said she had been in a romantic relationship with Andrew Tate for five and a half years, was questioned by defence lawyer Stephen Binhak as part of the Tate brothers’ effort to persuade Miami-based US Magistrate Judge Lauren Louis that they would not pose a danger to the community if released.
The former kickboxers have built a large online following promoting their views on masculinity and wealth.
Andrew Tate has previously described himself as a misogynist.
Sesay, who said she shared an eight-month-old child with Andrew Tate and was expecting their second child next month, said his sometimes provocative comments online did not reflect who he truly was.
“It’s a very different character between the person that you see online and the person I know,” Sesay said.
Andrew Tate, 39, and Tristan Tate, 38, looked back and forth between Binhak and Sesay during her testimony.
They were seated at the defence table shackled at the feet, wearing beige prison garb and sporting beards to their hearing.
The Tate brothers were arrested in Miami on July 18 after the UK requested their extradition to face charges of rape, assault and facilitating trafficking for sexual exploitation.
The Tate brothers, who have dual US and UK citizenship, have denied any wrongdoing.
Lawyers for the Tates also said they largely exaggerated their claims of wealth to boost their social media personas, their claims of multiple passports were satirical and a “$US50-million ($A70 million) superyacht” featured in one of the brothers’ videos does not actually belong to them.
The expensive luxury cars, including a $US2.1 million Aston Martin, that were featured in other videos were rented, the defence said.
The brothers have long claimed that their violent and misogynistic statements have been taken out of context or were intended as jokes.
“That is not the real Andrew Tate, the person Andrew Tate,” Howard Srebnick – another lawyer for the Tates – said, comparing Tate on social media to Sacha Baron Cohen’s confrontational Ali G character.
The arrests of the Tate brothers marked a new phase in their legal troubles.
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 US Attorney’s office said in an August 10 court filing.
The prosecutors said in court filings there was a strong presumption in favour of detention in international extradition cases.
They said the Tates could pose a danger to the community if released, citing UK 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 US prosecutors said.
Srebnick said that they had regularly appeared in court in Romania, where they are on pre-trial 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.
Thomas Maniotis, defence lawyer, 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.
The UK has until September 16 to submit its full extradition request to the State Department, US court records show.
The impetus for the brothers’ arrests in Miami was new charges brought by the UK’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 the UK related to three alleged victims, the CPS said.
A UK judge issued a warrant for their arrests in 2024.
They have not appeared in British court to enter a plea to those charges.
The UK is seeking to extradite the brothers to face both sets of charges.
with AP
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