Thomas Markle seems in court docket in wheelchair as youngster intercourse abuse picture prices detailed
This is a breaking news story and is being constantly updated by our reporters as the breaking news story develops
Thomas Markle has been charged over alleged possession of child abuse material(Image: GBNews)
Meghan Markle’s estranged father has appeared in court accused of possessing a stash of child sex abuse images. Thomas Markle, 82, was wheeled into a court in Florida, hours after he was arrested at a care home.
Wearing a black t-shirt and black trousers, he was escorted by two US Marshals as he appeared for an arraignment hearing in which the charges against him were laid out by federal prosecutor Courtenay Derry.
Markle, who was arrested by the FBI in Tampa on Friday morning, was charged with one count of possession of child pornography. He would likely die in prison if convicted as the charge can carry a prison sentence of up to 20 years.
A stash of abuse images were found in a storage Markle rented near his former home in Mexico(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
It has not been decided whether he should face charges in Florida or California, where the stash of alleged indecent images was found by investigators. A bond hearing was scheduled for later on Friday.
Photographs from his arrest show wheelchair-bound Markle being pushed to a waiting ambulance by an FBI agent. More than 20 are said to have swooped on the $3,900 per month specialist dementia care home, where he has been living since last week.
He is accused of “targetting innocent children” and “stealing their innocence through his criminal actions” by the US Justice Department. They said the material was found in two Los Angeles storage units he rented for nearly two decades and seized by investigators.
Warehouses raided by investigators(Image: AP Photo/Chris Noyola)
Acting on warrants, the FBI searched the storage units registered to Markle which he had rented since 2008, with his most recent payments on both made last month by auto-pay.
Inside the units, agents seized about 78 items, including slides, film negatives, and books that contained suspected child sex abuse material. Two of the images allegedly depict an adult man – whom a witness “positively identified” as Markle – with a nude young girl.
In one of them, the man “appears to be in the age range of 30s to 40s”, court documents state. A third image is said to show a nude young girl in a room that appears to be part of a motel chain in the Philippines.
Other photographs allegedly show Markle with children in various stages of undress.
The bombshell arrest came after he was reported to police in the Philippines and the FBI last month by his son, Thomas Markle Jr, who allegedly found illegal images amongst family mementos in his father’s belongings.
Cops in the Southeast Asian country reportedly found 7,500 images of underage children on devices allegedly belonging to Markle Snr. Th country’s Interior Secretary Juanito Victor Remulla revealed some of the children in the images were as young as ten.
And another stash of child sex abuse images was reportedly found in a storage unit that Markle rented near his former home in Mexico, sparking a criminal probe in that country.
Markle, who was living in a dementia care home in the US, has admitted paying for sex in the Philippines but has denied ever possessing child abuse imagery.
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