In December 2022, Andrew Tate, his brother Tristan, and two Romanian women were charged with forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women, trafficking, and tampering with evidence. Tate has also been charged with two counts of rape. After spending a few months in jail, Tate was released and allowed to travel anywhere in Romania. He maintains his innocence and has begun a campaign to discredit his accusers by suing his alleged trafficking victims for defamation and for causing his imprisonment.
LBK attorney Jill Roth represents one of these women and spoke with Newsweek about the toll this case has taken on her client’s life. Roth describes the emotional impact Tate has had on her: “She was very young and fell in love with him by meeting him online and having a lot of really deep, emotional, spiritual conversations,” which later turned out to be a lie.
“So now we find ourselves having to defend a woman who is a human trafficking and sexual assault victim because her perpetrators accusing her of being the reason he was ever in jail,” Roth says, adding, “It feels almost silly to say it out loud. It’s wild. It strains the imagination of the audacity of anyone taking this type of action against someone who they have perpetrated sexual crimes against.”
Compounding the emotional turmoil of Roth’s client is a leak of an unredacted copy of Tate’s Romanian criminal indictment. This document revealed her identity, leading to doxing and threats. Roth identifies this as a tactic to intimidate and silence victims who speak out. “What they’re really doing is saying, if you keep speaking out about me, I’m going to make you pay,” Roth says.
Roth is working with lawyers from the National Center on Sexual Exploitation to have the lawsuit dismissed.
Read about Tate’s release here.
Read about Tate’s lawsuit here.
