FBI agents arrest Thomas Markle, 82, at Florida care home

FBI agents arrested Thomas Markle Sr., the 82-year-old estranged father of Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, at a Florida care home on Friday over alleged possession of child sexual abuse material.

GB News reported that agents arrived at the Maravida Senior Living care home to apprehend him, and that he is said to have been arrested for possession of child sexual abuse material. A law enforcement source confirmed the arrest to Fox News.

No charges had been made public or filed in court by Friday afternoon, and the FBI had not confirmed the arrest. The Associated Press, citing people familiar with the matter, said he was arrested on charges related to child sexual abuse material.

An arrest, no charge

Markle Sr. strenuously denied any wrongdoing in relation to the possession of child sexual abuse images, GB News reported. Speaking to the Mail on Sunday, he said he had never harmed a child and dismissed the allegations as a bunch of lies. He suggested that he was being framed, and had earlier denied ever sleeping with anyone underage, TMZ reported.

I'm not a paedophile. I've never done anything bad to a child. Never.

Markle Sr. had been moved into a care home for dementia patients in Lakeland, Florida, on 30 October, according to the Sun.

The arrest followed weeks of investigative activity in two other countries. Philippine police opened a criminal inquiry into allegations that Markle Sr. kept child pornography at a home he once had in that country, and officers in Mexico searched a storage unit he rented near the United States border on 31 October.

Where the case began

Thomas Markle Jr., Meghan's half-brother, told police he found hundreds, if not thousands, of child sex abuse images at his father's former home in the Philippines, Breitbart News reported. He said he had no option but to report his father, according to TMZ. The account led to a criminal investigation in the Philippines into alleged possession of child pornography.

Maj. Gen. Wilson Asueta, the Philippine National Police's assistant director for investigation and detective management, told reporters on 3 November that the FBI was conducting its own investigation into Markle Sr., Breitbart News reported. The bureau's inquiry concerns allegations that he had child pornography at his former home in the Philippines. Asueta said British police had not been in contact with Philippine authorities.

Only the FBI and the U.S. authorities have reached out to our Women's and Children's Protection Center

Philippine authorities said the material included a video of children engaging in sex acts, Breitbart News reported. One video featured male and female minors of Asian and Caucasian descent, and Asueta said initial findings showed no Filipino children in the material examined so far.

Asueta said the investigation was going in the right direction and that a case would be filed if there was sufficient evidence.

Items handed over by Markle Jr. were shown being searched in a video released on 30 October, TMZ reported. Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla has said early findings pointed to a possible sex offender of the "grossest kind," and investigators were still working through the seized evidence at the end of the month.

The storage unit in Rosarito

The Daily Mail said it inspected a storage unit Markle Sr. rented in Rosarito, a beach town near the United States border, and found magazines featuring child sexual abuse images and voyeuristic photographs of children on beaches, TMZ reported on 30 October.

The newspaper said it also found published books about pedophilia in the unit. It said it was given access because Markle Sr. had allegedly failed to keep up with the lease payments.

In one set of photographs the Mail said it found, Markle Sr. poses with a young, clothed Asian girl. In another photograph, which does not show him, the girl is allegedly naked.

Mexican officers who identified themselves as sex crimes investigators searched the unit early on Saturday, 31 October, hours after the Mail published its account. They could be seen rifling through the stacks that contained the allegedly illicit material, the newspaper reported. Guardia Nacional officers took away a computer, thumb drives, VHS tapes and several magazines.

The Mail said it had reported Markle Sr. to the FBI over what it found in the unit, according to Breitbart News. TMZ said it had asked the FBI for comment on 30 October and had not received a response.

How the case has moved

Friday's arrest in Florida followed a run of reported investigative steps in two countries over the previous week. Mexican officers searched the Rosarito storage unit on 31 October, and on 3 November Philippine police said the FBI was running its own inquiry, three days before agents arrived at the care home. Markle Sr. was living at the home when he was arrested.

Meghan has said she cut off her father's contact with her children in light of a letter detailing similar accusations, TMZ reported. London's Metropolitan Police has confirmed that it received the letter in January 2019 and passed it to the Sussexes' office without sharing it with police overseas.

Markle Sr. did not attend his daughter's 2018 wedding to Prince Harry. The duchess was not aware of the allegations against him until after the wedding, Breitbart News reported.

Harry and Meghan were abroad with their two children, 7-year-old Prince Archie and 5-year-old Princess Lilibet, on a pre-planned half-term trip when the allegations became public, HELLO! reported.

Breitbart News reported that the duchess's response to the investigation had drawn scrutiny, noting that she and her father were already estranged before she had children and before she learned of the allegations.

What Meghan has said

The duchess has said she learned of the allegations in 2018, a date her spokesperson later said may be out by a few months, and attributed her distance from her father to a wish to protect her children, according to Breitbart News. Her statement addressed years of media coverage of the estrangement.

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

Meghan's representatives declined to comment when approached by GB News, which said it had also sought a response from Markle Sr. and from his son, Thomas Markle Jr.