Law&Crime Sidebar - Andrew Tate Claims Innocence as Human Trafficking Case Builds Momentum

Episode Date: January 18, 2023

Controversial social media personality Andrew Tate has persisted that he is innocent of the allegations pitted against him and his brother, Tristan Tate. The Tate brothers are currently being held without bond on order by a Romanian judge while authorities continue to investigate allegations of human trafficking and organized crime. The Law&Crime Network's Jesse Weber discusses with attorney and human trafficking expert Jenny El-Kadi.LAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergVideo Editing - Logan HarrisGuest Booking - Alyssa FisherSocial Media Management - Kiera BronsonSUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Court JunkieObjectionsThey Walk Among AmericaCoptales and CocktailsThe Disturbing TruthSpeaking FreelyLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Agent Nate Russo returns in Oracle 3, Murder at the Grandview, the latest installment of the gripping Audible Original series. When a reunion at an abandoned island hotel turns deadly, Russo must untangle accident from murder. But beware, something sinister lurks in the grand. View Shadows. Joshua Jackson delivers a bone-chilling performance in this supernatural thriller that will

keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. What do guys got to do to fight back against the Matrix? Yeah, I think the number one thing that you can do as a man is just to get your life in order. Andrew Tate may still be in a Romanian jail, but his case hasn't slowed down. Human trafficking attorney Jenny Alcotti discusses recent posts on Tate's Twitter account, the revelations from the social media stars bodyguard, and much more. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by law and crime. I'm Jesse Weber. While there is more developing on the Andrew Tate, the social media personality, former kickboxer,

and I'll say purported life coach and his brother Tristan, still remain in a Romanian jail on human trafficking and rape charges. Prosecutors allege that the brothers and two others, quote, created an organized crime group with the purpose of recruiting, housing, and exploiting women by forcing them to create pornographic content meant to be seen on specialized websites for a cost. Now, at this point, a judge has agreed to extend the detainment of Tate and his co-defendants from 24 hours to 30 days, but now we are hearing a lot more. We are hearing from his bodyguard, who's provided some interesting statements.

But not only that, despite being behind boss, ours, Andrew Tate's Twitter account has been quite active and posts daily. In fact, in one tweet, it says, anyone who believes a human trafficker may as well go and take their 10th vaccine, there are zero victims, zero proof of any crime in our case file. They have arrested me to look for evidence, which they will not find because it doesn't exist. And then there are other interesting videos posted on the account since his arrest. The world is influence.

It's always been about influence. Hitch battle in which armies go to war with machines. of death and destruction, it's about nothing more than influence, controlling the land to influence it, to tell them what language to speak, tell them what currency to use, tell them who to vote for. It's always been about influence. The battle for control, the battle for information, people think it's a small one. Oh, yeah, they control the information, but it doesn't matter. It's just a website.

No, because the information influences you. And there's even one of a protest, seemingly from Greece, of people protesting, Andrew Tate's arrest. So let me bring in a very special guest. I am joined right now by Jenny Alcotti. Jenny, as you know as an analyst on our long crime network, but not only that is she an attorney and an analyst. She specializes in human trafficking cases.

Jenny, this is your wheelhouse. I'm so happy to have you here on Cybar. Thanks for taking the time. Thank you for having me, Desi. Can we start with the posts? First, my understanding is he's locked away. So it's not him posting. It's got to be someone on his direction or somebody from his camp.

What do you make of these posts? I mentioned a few of them. There's another one that says anyone who believes I'm a human trafficker is genuinely a moron. There's another one that says basically accuses the Romanian government of arresting him for political purposes. And ironically, on the 28th of December, a day before the Tate brothers were arrested, the Minister of Justice puts out an ad stating they want to occupy this position. By arresting the most Google men in the world, the present management team would score a victory in the run for leadership. What do you make of all of these posts?

I think it's definitely a PR cover for sure. I think Andrew Tate is absolutely directing somebody else to be posting these things for him. And traffickers in general are never going to admit. From my experience, traffickers never admit that. that they are at fault. The typical approach is that they have the women, they victim blame. They have the women say, oh, I was doing this all myself. So right now, what he's trying to do, in my opinion, is cover his tracks. Can this be used against him? I know Romanian law is very different than what we have in the United States, but I can't imagine this is helping him.

Absolutely not. I mean, anything that you say is now going to be potentially admissible in court, especially when you have an open case like this that could potentially go into litigation. So it's definitely, it doesn't look good from a public standpoint. And I don't think it would look good from a jury input out with. So you would mention that human traffickers never take accountability. Right now he's not been convicted of anything. He's innocent until proven guilty. Well, at least here in the United States.

But his bodyguard has spoken out. And his bodyguard, Bogdan Stanchu, he's worked at Andrew Tate's compound, in Bucharest, Romania for two years, he told an outlet that Andrew Tate thought that these women would marry him, that, quote, some of the girls misunderstood the reality and believed they would be his next wife when they realize the reality, it's easy to transform from a friend into an enemy and make a statement to the police. Again, the presumption there is that they're lying about what ultimately happened. What do you make of those statements? I think, as you had mentioned, Jesse, that everybody is innocent until proven guilty. In my legal experience and in my opinion,

especially with the experience that I have in these cases, is that I think society is very ignorant and uneducated as to what human trafficking is. It is typically that you see women who are vulnerable, who are not in the best place in their lives. And I think I read something where there were women 25 and under that were working for him. And that is very young. And And those women tend to be victim blamed or victim shamed. And that's really what you see with human trafficking is the level of manipulation that traffickers have over these victims and survivors is just unbelievable. The threats that they put on them, their inability to eat or have food or water is a high

level of manipulation that you see commonly with human trafficking. So I think there is a level of ignorance with what human trafficking is to the world. world and especially even with, you know, law enforcement. I think that now society is becoming more educated as to what human trafficking is, but I definitely do think that there is still victim blaming occurring with innocent individuals. And look, he can put on that defense that these women are lying about him, that they misunderstood what was happening. What I find interesting is the way that it's framed, right? So he's been accused of using the lover boy method, right? This strategy where you manipulate women, making them believe a false assumption about what this relationship is about.

In fact, he had said that he would get women to fall in love with him so she'd do anything I say, and that get her on webcam so we become rich together. Is this new? Is anything about this case different from what you've seen? Or is this just a very common in human trafficking cases? It is 100% very common. This is how you hear how women get groomed. So he calls it the lover boy strategy or method. This is what we call grooming and human trafficking, which is basically that the male, whoever it may be, pretends as though they want to be in a relationship with the woman, that they love them, that they're going to save them from the horrible reality that they're in right now. And then that is how they get them to be forced

to stay with them, unfortunately. And they start gaining access into their life, learning about their family, learning about their past. And that is what gets them to be able to manipulate these women. So it's not new. It's not uncommon. His term of lover boy is just a different terminology for grooming these women into trafficking. One of the other interesting aspects of this case is that the government in Romania has seized a lot of his assets. Now, we had on Stefan Lorodon, who is a Romanian lawyer, and he said in these kinds of cases, where the crime is you profit off of illegal activity, the government would seize the assets. And in the event that you are convicted, the assets are sold off and they're paid to compensate the victims. So just this last

weekend, the Romanian authorities confiscated 29 assets, 15 sports cars, 14 luxury watches. What do you think about that? I mean, is that kind of different from what you've seen? Interestingly enough, I practice civil law. So I file cases under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act and we file against corporations in the sense of we seek civil compensation and monetary damages for the survivors so that way they can have compensation to get a normal life to get the medical treatment that they need. So that's an interesting law in Romania that they confiscate the assets in order to compensate the victims, but it's not uncommon. And you can have a criminal lawsuit against him and punish him if he is guilty, but the just compensation for the monetary

damages, I think is so important for survivors so that way they can get the mental help that they need to go work through that mental anguish. Now, I might have been mistaken, but when I spoke to Stefan Laudan, the Samoramian lawyer, my impression was the case against the Tates are very strong. I am curious, though, let's assume it's not a foregone conclusion he's convicted. What are potential defenses in human trafficking cases? Typically, what I commonly see is victim blaming, which we're seeing a lot of, is that she said it was okay. She came with me. She wanted to do this. These are the common things that you will see. It depends too on their age. We know that if they're a minor, then they can't consent to anything. So that's one of the main things. But if they are

above the age of 18, typically what you tend to see is that, oh, well, they got to keep some of the money. So therefore, they were a part, they were an active participant in it. So there's a lot of victim blaming and a lot of it also comes down to evidence. How can you prove that it's because it's testimony based. And unfortunately, as much as we hate to see it, testimony nowadays doesn't seem to hold as much water as physical hardcore evidence. And so that really is what it comes down to as well is victim blaming and the evidence that you're going to see.

So those are the defenses we'll probably get. Well, I imagine if and when Andrew Tate is released from jail pending this trial, we're probably going to hear more from him about this. And this case, we'll get more and more complex. Jenny Alcotti, thank you so much for taking the time and breaking it down for us. And that's all we have for you here on Sidebar, everybody. Thank you so much. Please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcast. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. of this long crime series, ad-free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.