Andrew Tate, 38, and his brother Tristan Tate, 36, have spent weeks in a roach-infested Florida detention center where detainees say they are treated “like dogs” amid broken toilets, pepper spray incidents, and what one inmate called a “horrible stench of piss.”
The brothers were arrested on July 18 and moved to the Federal Detention Center in Miami, where they now fight extradition to the United Kingdom on charges including rape and human trafficking. Their lawyers filed complaints last month about the conditions in the special housing unit, a cordoned-off section that separates them from the general population.
Their attorneys detailed one incident where officers used pepper spray on another detainee and the fumes reached the brothers’ cells. “It burned their eyes, their throats, and their airways. No officer decontaminated them. No medical staff examined them. The brothers wrapped wet T-shirts around their faces and waited for the air to clear,” the filing stated. The lawyers also claimed the Tates were denied basic grooming products and subjected to harsh treatment overall.
Tristan Tate raised his own complaints in a hand-scrawled note shared by their lawyer on X last month, focusing on food. “I am hungry,” he wrote, alleging he had lost 13 pounds while Andrew had lost 8. Bureau of Prisons receipts showed the brothers have been buying ramen noodles and Spicy Sweet Chili Doritos from the jailhouse commissary to supplement their meals.
The facility’s problems extend well beyond the Tates’ unit. Marlon Cervelo Trujillo, a detainee housed elsewhere in the building, told his wife in a recorded phone conversation that the toilets are left filthy and the smell permeates the space. “This horrible stench of piss seeps out from under the doors, because there’s piss, there’s s–t inside, and the toilets are still left like that,” he said, according to public radio station WLRN. He added, “We’re either going to kill ourselves, or we’re going to die from some illness. Because [the guards] don’t care about anything in there.”
A prison officer reportedly greeted a group of 50 newly arrived detainees with “welcome to hell” before cramming them into a small holding cell. The greeting has become a grim emblem of the facility’s reputation among those who pass through its doors.
Human Rights Watch previously documented “extreme overcrowding, unsanitary conditions and abusive treatment” inside FDC Miami, including broken toilets, verbal harassment, and “acts of humiliation including cavity searches.” The organization has flagged the facility as a site of systemic problems rather than isolated incidents.
The Bureau of Prisons pushed back against the Tate complaints in a filing, conceding that the detention center is “not a Marriott” but insisting that conditions “are reasonable, constitutional and within BOP’s discretion.” In a separate statement, the agency said it “takes seriously our duty to protect all individuals entrusted to our custody, as well as maintain the safety of correctional employees and the community.”
The Tate brothers built a global following promoting a hyper-masculine, lavish lifestyle before their legal troubles mounted. Romanian authorities previously held them on human trafficking allegations, and the UK extradition request adds another front to their sprawling legal battles. Their Miami detention marks a sharp contrast to the private jets and luxury properties that featured heavily in their social media presence.
Their lawyers continue to challenge both the extradition proceedings and the conditions of their confinement as the case moves through the courts.