A federal judge has ordered an 82-year-old man to undergo a psychiatric evaluation to determine whether he can stand trial on child sexual abuse material charges.
Thomas Markle, the estranged father of Meghan Markle, 43, was arrested last Friday in Florida on a single federal count of possessing such material, according to court records from Tampa. US Magistrate Judge Lindsay Griffin issued a two-page order the same day flagging concerns about his mental fitness after his initial court appearance revealed what she described as a “lack of recall.”
Griffin found “reasonable cause to believe” that Markle “may suffer from a mental disease or defect rendering him mentally incompetent to the extent that he is unable to understand the nature and consequences of the proceedings against him or to assist properly in his defense.” She based this determination on his health condition, his advanced age, and his memory gaps during the hearing.
The judge appointed Dr. Amie Gerodimos, a forensic psychiatrist, to conduct an independent examination and deliver a diagnosis of Markle’s mental fitness for trial. Griffin set a November 20 deadline for Gerodimos to report back to the court.
According to an FBI affidavit filed with the criminal complaint, federal agents seized slides, film negatives and books from storage units Markle had rented in Los Angeles since 2008. The material included two explicit photographs of Markle posed with a naked underage girl and other images of him with children in various stages of undress.
One photograph showed a naked girl in a room that appears to be part of a motel chain in the Philippines, where Markle had previously lived for some time.
Markle was most recently residing in Lakeland, Florida, where he was reportedly a nursing home patient. He was released from custody on personal recognizance after Friday’s hearing, with the judge requiring home detention and electronic monitoring. No plea was entered during the proceeding.
FBI Director Kash Patel addressed the arrest on Friday, stating that Markle “targeted innocent children and sought to steal their innocence through his criminal actions.”
The federal public defender assigned to represent Markle, Mary Claire Wolf, did not immediately respond to requests for comment following the hearing.
Markle has been estranged from his daughter Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, since before her 2018 wedding to Prince Harry. The retired television lighting director gave a series of paid interviews criticizing the royal family after Meghan’s marriage and has not met his grandchildren, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet.
The psychiatric evaluation order represents an unusual procedural step in the early stages of a federal criminal case, with Griffin explicitly citing Markle’s cognitive difficulties during his first court appearance as the trigger for her intervention.