Norwegian Crown Princess’s Son Found Guilty of Two Counts of Rape, Sentenced to Four Years in Prison.
Marius Borg Høiby, stepson of Norway’s future king, convicted on multiple charges after a high-profile trial that has cast a shadow over the royal family.
Oslo, Norway, The Women Post — Marius Borg Høiby, the 29-year-old son of Norway’s Crown Princess Mette-Marit, has been found guilty of two counts of rape and sentenced to four years in prison.
The three judges in Courtroom 250 at Oslo District Court cleared him of two other counts of rape but found him guilty of many of the other offences of which he had been accused.
Høiby was not in court for the verdict due to unspecified health reasons but joined the session via video link.
Prosecutors had called for Høiby to be sentenced to seven years and seven months in prison. His defence lawyers had argued for a lesser sentence of 18 months and have said he will appeal.
Although Marius Borg Høiby is not a member of the royal family himself, the trial has cast a shadow over the broader monarchy. His mother married Crown Prince Haakon when he was four years old, and he grew up within the royal household. The palace has said it will not comment on Monday’s verdict.
Mette-Marit is seriously ill with a form of pulmonary fibrosis and has recently been placed on a lung transplant waiting list.
Her son’s lawyers have repeatedly sought his release from prison so he could spend time with his mother because of her declining health.
Following the verdict, Høiby’s defence lawyer, Petar Sekulic, again asked the court for his release. Although Oslo District Court initially granted his release last week, the decision was overturned by the Court of Appeal.
One of the three judges in the trial, Judge Jon Sverdrup Efjestad, began Monday’s session with a summary of the court’s conclusions before presenting the 128-page ruling that detailed the verdict.
Høiby had denied all four rape charges, but the judges convicted him of raping two women, including one incident on the Crown Prince’s estate at Skaugum in 2018 and another involving a woman in Oslo in 2024.
He was also convicted of abusing an ex-girlfriend, Norwegian influencer Nora Haukland, and of causing serious bodily harm to another partner, in whose apartment he was arrested in the affluent Frogner district of Oslo in August 2024.
However, he was acquitted of two further rape charges involving a woman he met at a hotel in Oslo in November 2024 and another woman he met while on holiday in the Lofoten Islands in 2023.
Sekulic said it was “in the nature of the case that there could be an appeal.”
His defence colleague, Ellen Holager Andenæs, told reporters they were satisfied with the acquittals but were more critical of other aspects of the verdict.
Both lawyers then went to discuss the ruling with Høiby at Ila Prison and Detention Centre outside Oslo.
The case against Høiby involved six women, but only one of them was present in court to hear the verdict. She was seen crying as Høiby was found guilty of raping her.
Prosecutors said she had been either incapacitated or asleep when she was raped following a party in Oslo in March 2024, after the pair had engaged in consensual sex.
The case relied on videos that Høiby had filmed at the time. Giving evidence in February, the woman told the court that she had been asleep and would never have consented to what happened.
The court agreed that the victim had been unable to resist.
All four rape charges involved women who were either asleep or incapacitated at the time of the alleged offences. The women were unaware of the incidents until police discovered videos on Høiby’s phone following his arrest.
The judges also found it proven that the woman in the 2018 rape case had been asleep and unable to resist Høiby. She only learned last year that he had filmed the incident.
Høiby was also convicted of several offences, including abuse and reckless behaviour toward the sixth woman in the case, who became known as the “Frogner woman” because of the Oslo neighbourhood where she lived.
The court ruled that he should pay a total of 640,000 kroner (£50,000; €57,000) in compensation to four of the women, including Nora Haukland, the only woman the judges ruled could be identified publicly in the case.
Anja Emilie Kruse, a criminologist at the University of Oslo who researches sexual violence and attended part of the trial, said there is growing frustration in parts of Norwegian society that the courts often appear unable to deliver justice in rape cases.
“The burden of evidence needs to be high,” she told the BBC, adding that most rape allegations made by women are filed away by police. She also noted that state prosecutors pointed out on Monday that one in three Norwegian rape cases that reaches court ends in acquittal.
“These two women who today experienced their cases ending in acquittal are far from alone in having that experience, and the rape cases that do make it to court are just a kind of tip of the iceberg.”
In an email to the BBC, the palace said that “the matter has been considered by the courts, and we have no comment on the outcome.” It has already made clear that there will be no further updates on Mette-Marit’s declining health until she has undergone a lung transplant.
“There is no doubt that this case has affected people’s perception of the royal family,” said Caroline Vagle, royal correspondent for Se og Hør magazine.
That perception was further complicated by revelations on the eve of the trial that the Crown Princess had maintained a three-year friendship with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Entitled scumbag. What’s wrong with these morally impoverished bastards?
4 years for being found guilty on 2 counts of Rape. Wow! Norway is as bad as the US. The Crown Prince needs the "John Wayne Bobbit" treatment. I volunteer.