An American woman who claims Andrew and Tristan Tate attempted to recruit her into a webcam sex trafficking ring filed a countersuit against the social media personalities on Monday, claiming they defamed her after she gave a testimony to Romanian authorities.
The civil complaint was filed in a circuit court in Palm Beach County, Florida, by a woman identified in court documents as Jane Doe.
The brothers, who have been fighting criminal cases in Romania and the U.K., have been accused of human trafficking, money laundering and sex crimes. They have denied all allegations against them.
Jane Doe’s countersuit comes after the Tate brothers sued her for defamation in 2023, accusing her and another woman of giving fabricated evidence to Romanian authorities and conspiring to defraud and falsely imprison them.
But Jane Doe has been “relentlessly harassed, threatened, and sued for merely cooperating with Romanian authorities,” her attorney Dani Pinter, senior vice president at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, said in a statement.
“Andrew and Tristan Tate have worked to ruin her life by suing her and her parents — an abuse of the legal system and blatant witness intimidation,” Pinter said. “Today, she is fighting back against this use of lawfare and her counterclaim against the Tate brothers shows that she will not be intimidated by their attempts to silence her.”
Alleging that the brothers’ actions have caused her severe emotional distress, Jane Doe now seeks financial compensation at an amount to be determined at trial, as well as a court order prohibiting the Tate brothers from “contacting, harassing, or defaming” her.
Jane Doe’s suit is the first U.S.-based lawsuit against the Tate brothers, who are both former kickboxers and dual U.S.-British citizens.
They were indicted in Romania in June 2023 on charges of human trafficking, rape and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women — allegations they have denied. In December, a Romanian appeals court sent the case back to prosecutors for further review instead of putting it to trial, citing flaws in the indictment.
Andrew Tate, 38, a divisive social media personality known for his extreme rhetoric on women and masculinity, was temporarily placed under house arrest in August as Romanian prosecutors investigated a separate set of allegations, which include human trafficking of minors, sex with a minor and money laundering.
He and Tristan Tate, 36, had been previously detained in Romania on allegations of sexual aggression in another old U.K. case. A Romanian court has approved their extradition to the U.K. once the brothers finish trial in Romania. The brothers are being monitored in Romania under judicial control, as their house arrest was lifted last month.
Andrew and Tristan Tate’s lawyer, Joseph McBride, said he is “pleased” with the progress of the Tates’ defamation suit against Jane Doe, which has yet to go to trial.
“Discovery is progressing in our case. The facts and law strongly support our claims. We look forward to the trial,” McBride wrote in an email, adding that her countersuit is a “poorly constructed and desperate attempt to relitigate the failed Romanian criminal case in a U.S. court,” referring to the case that was sent back to prosecutors.
“Shockingly, NCOSE has blatantly disregarded Judge Curley’s order to seal the Romanian indictment by copying and pasting large sections of the Romanian indictment into their flawed lawsuit,” McBride wrote. “We will be seeking sanctions immediately.”
Jane Doe alleges that she was lured by Tristan Tate from Florida to Romania under the pretense of a romantic relationship.
The two met online in late 2021 when Jane Doe was 20 years old, according to her lawsuit. Tristan Tate flew Jane Doe out to live with him in Romania and he imposed a set of rules on her, the lawsuit alleges, including one forbidding her from talking to anyone Tate didn’t introduce her to.
The lawsuit also cited alleged instances of Tristan Tate seemingly pressuring Jane Doe to create sexual content on OnlyFans, a subscription-based exclusive content platform popular with sex workers. It noted that he appeared to accept when she finally told him she didn’t want to do so.
She was living in a house with other women, all of whom were supposedly in a relationship with either Andrew or Tristan Tate, according to the lawsuit, which added that many of them appeared to be working “very long hours” on their OnlyFans. After realizing that she hardly saw Tristan Tate despite having talked about spending time together, Jane Doe began getting worried she was “lured to Romania on false pretenses.”
The lawsuit also alleged one woman told Jane Doe that she feared she “would end up dead” if she told anyone the things she knew about the Tate brothers, and another woman told Jane Doe that she had not been paid for some work she had done for the Tates on TikTok. This and other observations, the lawsuit stated, made Jane Doe suspect that trafficking was occurring.
