Andrew Tate continues to fight rape and human trafficking charges
2023.02.28 13:04
Andrew Tate continues to fight rape and human trafficking charges
By Ray Johnson
Budrigannews.com – According to wiretaps of Andrew Tate’s phone calls that were presented to a court by Romanian prosecutors, Tate attempted to fight allegations of rape and trafficking while he was being held by the police and directed associates to recruit two right-wing lawmakers to his cause.
According to one of the exchanges, the internet celebrity instructed two associates to inform Romanian politicians George Simion and Diana Iovanovici-Sosoaca that he was being framed and that supporting him would be “very good for their careers.”
Therefore, make it clear to them: “When Tate says you took their side, you will get a lot of votes,” the former kickboxer told two of his friends on Jan. 28.
A court document, dated February 21, compiled by Bucharest court officials and reviewed by Reuters, contains transcriptions of the wiretapped calls that were not previously made public.
A politician in Romania’s lower house, Simion, told Reuters that Tate and his associates had never contacted him and that he would not publicly support Tate if asked to.
He responded, when asked if he believed Tate had been framed, ” The judiciary, not politicians, will make the final decision.
The conversations that were wiretapped, according to a spokesperson for Iovanovici-Sosoaca, a senator, were “lies” meant to harm her.
Prosecutors claim that the wiretapped calls were made between January 28 and January 31, a month after Tate, 36, and his brother Tristan, 34, were arrested on suspicion of rape, human trafficking, and forming an organized crime group.
The brothers have denied every allegation. They were detained by the police and could not be reached by Reuters for comment.
A spokesperson for the prosecutors and the Tates’ attorney, Eugen Vidineac, both declined to comment on the ongoing investigation when asked about the wiretap calls.
Reuters was unable to independently confirm the identities of the individuals in the wiretapped calls or determine whether any political lobbying took place. The exchanges, which are in Romanian in the court document, were retranslated by the news organization back into Tate’s English, so while they are accurate, they might not match his original language.
Online influencer and self-described misogynist Tate is British-American and based primarily in Romania since 2017. He has amassed a following of millions of fans, particularly young men drawn to his hyper-macho image.
His multifaceted efforts to defend himself while in detention, which extend beyond the courtroom into the realms of politics and social media, are revealed by the wiretapped calls.
Tate also tells his associate Luke to post “party clips” on social media that, according to the court document, show at least one of his alleged trafficking victims dancing in Bucharest.
Tate states, “Yes, put them everywhere and say, “This girl says she was kidnapped when she wasn’t.”
“Are you saying that you want me to discredit them and use social media heavily, yes?” Luke asks.
Tate responds, “Yes, screw them.”
The minutes of a Bucharest court hearing on Feb. 21, when a judge extended the Tates’ detention until late March, are included in the court document. Prosecutors have also provided evidence, claiming that the brothers ran a human trafficking operation focused on online pornography.
According to the minutes, another Tates lawyer, Alexandru Risnita, denied that the brothers posed a flight risk if released from custody while the investigation was ongoing. He stated that because his clients were “the most famous people on the planet right now,” it would be extremely difficult for them to travel unnoticed.
