Thomas Markle Sr., the estranged father of Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, was arrested Friday by federal agents in Florida on charges related to possession of child sexual abuse material, a Justice Department official said.

The official was granted anonymity to speak publicly about the sensitive case material, which remains under seal. Markle, 82, was taken into custody near Tampa on Friday morning.

His arrest followed a report last month by The Sun — a British tabloid newspaper that has long drawn condemnation from Meghan’s husband, Prince Harry — which detailed allegations that a large collection of images depicting child sex abuse had been uncovered at Markle’s former home in the Philippines.

The accusation was raised by Markle’s son, according to an interview in the Sun, who said he felt he “had no option but to report” his father after he discovered “hundreds, if not thousands” of images of child sex abuse that were stored in boxes and on computer hard drives throughout his father’s home.

Markle’s son told The Sun that he was “horrified” upon discovering the alleged material, which he said he reported to Philippine law enforcement and the FBI hotline, as well as state police in Pennsylvania, where his father was living at the time.

The FBI said at the time that it was providing support to Philippine authorities where appropriate and that it was prepared to investigate any related violations of U.S. federal law.

Markle was living in a care home in Florida at the time of his arrest and has denied the allegations.

Meghan recently said she was “deeply distressed” by the accusations against her father. Meghan told The New York Times in an interview last month that she first learned of the allegations in 2018, when the London Metropolitan Police unit that was at the time responsible for her security received a letter containing “troubling and disturbing allegations” against her father.

She did not provide details of the allegations in the letter, but she said she had been assured they were under investigation. Meghan’s estrangement from her father became the subject of massive media attention when he did not attend her wedding to Harry in 2018.

“I hope it can now be understood that, despite certain media publications’ distortion over the years, any distance from my father and my choice to not allow him to have contact with our children was for one reason: to protect them,” Meghan told the Times.

Meghan and Harry have two children, 7-year-old Prince Archie and 5-year-old Princess Lilibet. The pair recently moved back to England after living in California for six years following a public fallout with senior members of the British royal family.

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