Thomas Markle Snr has been admitted to a care home for people living with dementia, according to The Sun. On Sunday (UK time), it was reported he was being moved to a Florida facility specialising in “memory care”.
A Florida-based lawyer who has represented some of the victims of convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein has now suggested the dementia diagnosis could affect how the case proceeds. Spencer Kuvin told the Daily Mail that Markle Snr’s “cognitive issues” could stop law enforcement from questioning him as part of the investigation. “You can’t just barge into a memory care facility and conduct an interview. Any decent lawyer would be able to get that interview struck [off] and the FBI know that,” he told the publication.
Despite that, prosecutors in the Philippines have said Meghan’s father will face the “full extent of the law” if found guilty.
The 82-year-old, a former lighting director, has spent the past few months in a rehabilitation centre in the Sunshine State after his lower left leg was amputated in the Philippines in December last year.
The Sun reported last month it was the first to reveal authorities were looking into Markle Snr after a “vast” stash of child abuse material was found at his former Philippines home, an allegation he strongly denies. It has since been revealed that the FBI has opened an investigation into Markle Snr regarding his alleged possession of child sexual abuse material.
The dementia diagnosis emerged after his son, Thomas Markle Jnr, found a stash of child sex abuse material in his former home and reported him to the police.
Following news of an investigation, Meghan, 45, said in a statement she was “deeply distressed” by the allegations and that she had been told about them years earlier. “In 2018, a letter was sent to the Metropolitan police and Royalty and Specialist Protection. That letter was subsequently shared with me. It made troubling and disturbing allegations against my father, and I was given assurances that these were being investigated,” she said. “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.”
Police later confirmed they received a letter from Thomas Markle Snr’s ex-wife, Robyn Loveless, but said it had been sent in 2019.
Separately, Daily Mail journalists claim they uncovered a collection of child pornography in a storage unit rented by Prince Harry’s father-in-law near his former Mexican home. The publication alleges the haul included books about paedophilia, magazines showing children being sexually abused and several images of naked females, some of whom appear young. Markle has denied the items are his, telling The Mail on Sunday that he “had no storage units in Rosarito”.
