Norway's royal family found itself embroiled in an intensifying scandal Tuesday after the son of the country's crown princess was arrested on suspicion of rape.
Marius Borg Hoiby, 27, was arrested Monday on a preliminary charge of having "sexual intercourse with someone who is unconscious or for other reasons is unable to resist the act," police in the capital, Oslo, said in a statement early Tuesday.
He was also charged with one count of "abuse in close relationships," violating a restraining order, and driving without a valid driver’s license, police said Tuesday.
A preliminary charge comes before a formal charge, and allows law enforcement to detain a suspect for further investigation.
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They add to the growing list of charges against the Oslo socialite, the eldest child of Norwegian Crown Princess Mette-Marit from a relationship prior to her marriage to Crown Prince Haakon.
He is currently being held by police in Oslo.
Borg Hoiby pleaded not guilty to the charge, and was cooperating with the police and wanted to explain himself, his defense attorney Oyvind Bratlien told Norwegian state broadcaster NRK on Tuesday. His attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment from NBC News.
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“We do not have a comment on this case and direct all questions to police and attorney for Marius Borg Hoiby,” Simen Sund, Communications Advisor for the Royal Palace, told NBC News by phone on Tuesday.
It was the police who brought the provisional rape charge, not the alleged victim, her lawyer Hege Salomon told Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten. Salomon said the woman “has no relation with the other women in the case,” and “is having a hard time.”
Borg Hoiby is being investigated over allegations of abuse from four women.
He was first arrested in August of this year after a violent incident at an apartment in the capitol's Frogner neighborhood, over which he has pleaded guilty to charges of bodily harm and property damage. Police said the suspicions relating to the August incident included domestic abuse.
He has also pleaded guilty to charges of having made a death threat against a man in separate incident. And Borg Hoiby has pleaded not-guilty to separate charges related to two past relationships.
According to police, when he was arrested Monday Borg Hoiby was in a car with the alleged victim from the August incident.
Borg Hoiby apologized for the events leading up to his August arrest in a statement to NRK at the time, blaming it on "being intoxicated with alcohol and cocaine after an argument" and "several mental illnesses" for which he planned to "resume treatment."
He was four when his mother married Prince Haakon in 2001, and despite not being an official member of the royal family, has attended events and lived on royal property with his mother, stepfather and two half-siblings, Princess Ingrid Alexandra and Prince Sverre Magnus.
During the royal couple's engagement, Mette-Marit was criticized in the media as an inappropriate choice for future queen due to having had a child with a man convicted of drug possession, and her own "wild past" involving rumored partying and drug-taking.
Mette-Marit responded with a televised news conference the week before the 2001 wedding, in which she condemned drugs and apologized for having "lived a dissolute life" before meeting the prince, and was ultimately praised by the media for her "Cinderella" story.
Borg Hoiby has previously been in the spotlight for selling designer items on a Norwegian reselling app and listing the address as the royal palace. He played a walk-on role on a popular Norwegian teenage television show, and even appeared in an American Vogue feature in 2018 giving tips on the most stylish spots to spend time in Oslo.
He is a mainstay of Norwegian tabloid media along with his stepfather's elder sister Princess Martha Louise, who married an American self-proclaimed "shaman" in August and has claimed that she can communicate with angels.
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