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About 30 Gen Z and millennial men gathered outside the federal courthouse in downtown Miami on Thursday as Andrew and Tristan Tate returned to court, with supporters traveling from Orlando, Austin, New Orleans, Los Angeles, London, and beyond. Some tried to attend the hearing but were denied entry.
Among them was Tyson Hockley, 18, who traveled from British Columbia and credited the brothers with inspiring him to stop smoking weed, eat better, and “lock in.” He said he believes Andrew Tate is “completely innocent,” arguing that authorities “can’t allow one or two men to have that much influence over the system.” Dylan Morales, 24, was similarly unwavering: “Tate helped me not to trust women, and he helped me get fit,” he told New Times, accusing the mainstream media of being “envious of Andrew.”
Inside the courthouse, attorneys for the brothers were making a considerably more technical version of the argument their supporters were making outside: that the Tates are not fugitives and should not be treated like them.
The brothers have been held in federal custody in Miami since their July 18 arrests on British extradition warrants. Federal complaints filed in the Southern District of Florida accuse Andrew Tate of raping one woman multiple times and choking her until she lost consciousness, as well as assaulting another woman during separate sexual encounters. Tristan Tate is accused of repeatedly raping and choking a former girlfriend until she lost consciousness and physically assaulting her over the course of their relationship. The allegations have not been proven in court, and the brothers have denied wrongdoing.
The July complaints sought the brothers’ provisional arrests under the U.S.-U.K. Extradition Treaty while British authorities prepared their formal extradition request. At the time, prosecutors said Britain sought their extradition on rape and assault charges while reserving the right to add offenses to its formal request.
Today’s hearing
On Thursday, the defense sought to turn the focus away from the underlying allegations and toward what it described as the brothers’ extraordinary record of complying with courts around the world.
Andrew Ford, an attorney with U.K. law firm Holborn Adams, told the court that the brothers have not yet formally been charged in the United Kingdom and instead have been informed that they will be charged upon their return. Ford said a Trade and Cooperation Agreement warrant was issued in 2024 and that the brothers have offered opportunities to be interviewed in both the U.K. and Romania.
The brothers were last physically present in Romania on July 3, Ford said. Romanian authorities, he added, were aware of the newer British allegations, and the Romanian government has told the U.S. government that the brothers complied with their obligations there.
The defense also stressed that if the brothers were arrested in Britain on the newer charges, they would be entitled to seek bail there.
Attorney Joseph McBride, one of the brothers’ most outspoken American lawyers, seized on that history as he argued that the Tates pose little risk of fleeing if released in Miami.
He described their record as an “extraordinary history of compliance,” arguing that the brothers have repeatedly appeared in different jurisdictions to “face the music” rather than run from criminal or civil proceedings. “Innocent men don’t run,” McBride told the court. “They lean into the process.”
McBride pointed to the brothers’ travel history and their return to Florida despite the legal and political scrutiny that awaited them here.
When the brothers arrived in Florida from Romania in February 2025, Gov. Ron DeSantis publicly declared that they were not welcome in the state. The brothers nevertheless returned to South Florida as they participated in a Palm Beach County defamation lawsuit stemming from allegations connected to their Romanian criminal case, the defense argued.
Their attorneys also emphasized the public nature of Andrew Tate’s travels. Tate, they argued, hardly behaves like a man trying to disappear: He routinely publicizes where he is going, including a boxing match in Dubai and the Miami boxing event he was scheduled to co-host immediately before his July arrest.
Federal prosecutors previously argued precisely the opposite. The complaints that led to the brothers’ arrests noted that U.S. Marshals spotted them in Miami on July 17 and asked that the cases remain sealed because prosecutors believed the brothers might flee if they learned warrants had been issued.
The defense also attacked the government’s portrayal of the allegations themselves, at one point dismissing the presentation as “death by PowerPoint” and accusing prosecutors of trying to construct “some murder mystery story that’s just not true.”
The judge pushed attorneys to focus their presentation on information relevant to the decisions the court must make. The status of the British charges, the judge noted, remains somewhat in flux until the brothers arrive in the United Kingdom, where the defense said they are expected to face charges upon arrival.
The Tates’ living conditions
The hearing also offered a glimpse into the conditions in which two of the internet’s most famous masculinity influencers have spent the past several weeks.
McBride described what he called “egregious conditions of confinement,” saying the brothers are being held in restricted housing and locked in their cells for roughly 23 hours per day. He said they have access to commissary only twice a month, struggle to communicate with their children, and have appeared “routinely disheveled, hurt and hungry.” The restrictions, McBride argued, have also complicated their ability to prepare for ongoing cases in Romania and Palm Beach County.
The complaints underlying the extradition proceeding describe considerably more graphic allegations than the defense dwelled on Thursday.
British authorities accuse Andrew Tate of repeatedly choking a woman unconscious while raping her at her home in Bedford, England, in 2015. A second woman told investigators Tate choked her during sexual encounters, including one episode in which she struggled to breathe and feared she was going to die, according to the federal complaint.
Tristan Tate’s complaint centers on allegations from a woman prosecutors say was in a long-term relationship with him between 2012 and 2013. She told investigators he repeatedly choked her unconscious while raping her, penetrated her anally while she was unconscious despite her objections, and physically assaulted her, including by striking her and beating her with a belt. Prosecutors also describe a separate alleged rape around Christmas Eve 2012.
Both brothers have denied criminal wrongdoing. Their attorneys maintain that they are neither dangers to the community nor flight risks and say their compliance with court orders in Romania demonstrates that they can be trusted to remain free while contesting extradition.
Outside the courthouse Thursday, their supporters appeared to need little convincing.
For the men who gathered in the Miami heat after traveling from across the United States and abroad, the criminal allegations were not evidence against the Tates. To some, they were evidence of the very persecution the brothers have spent years warning their followers about.
