Thomas Markle back in jail after cutting off monitor

Accused child sexual predator Thomas Markle has been sent back to jail after cutting off an electronic ankle monitor he was ordered to wear as a condition of home confinement.

US Magistrate Judge Lindsay Griffin found that the estranged father of the Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, had violated the terms of his pretrial release and ordered him returned to federal custody without bond at a hearing on Tuesday in Tampa, Florida, court records showed.

Thomas Markle, 82, was charged on Friday with a single federal count of possessing child sexual abuse material, including two explicit photographs of himself posed with a naked underage girl and other images of him with children in various stages of undress.

According to an FBI affidavit filed in court as part of the criminal complaint lodged against him, one of the photos showed a naked girl in a room that appears to be part of a motel chain in the Philippines, where Markle previously resided and where authorities initiated an investigation of him in October.

The affidavit says federal agents seized the material in question, including photographic slides, film negatives and books, from two storage units Markle had rented in Los Angeles since 2008.

Markle, who most recently resided at an assisted-living facility in Lakeland, Florida, near Tampa, denied possessing sexually explicit photos of children when such allegations first surfaced, telling the Daily Mail they were untrue and “sick lies.”

No plea was entered during Markle’s initial court hearing on Friday, and the judge permitted him to be released from custody on condition that he submit to home detention and the wearing of an electronic monitoring device.

But federal prosecutors said they asked the judge to revoke home-release and keep him locked up pending trial after he was found to have cut the ankle bracelet off early on Monday morning.

Agreeing that Markle’s housing situation had “become untenable”, Griffin granted the prosecutors’ request. Markle was then re-arrested and returned to federal custody, according to the US Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles, where the case against him was brought.

The judge stipulated that Markle was to be kept in a detention facility “separate, to the extent practicable, from” the general jail population. She also ordered Markle to undergo a “prompt medical evaluation”.

Griffin on Friday ordered Markle to undergo a psychiatric examination to determine whether he was mentally competent to face prosecution.

The judge said she found “reasonable cause to believe” he was suffering from some mental deficiency, based in part on his advanced age and a “lack of recall” he demonstrated during last week’s court appearance.