Prosecutors declared on Wednesday that Marius Borg Høiby, son of Norway’s crown princess, should spend seven years and seven months in jail. The 39 charges against him could have left him with much longer jail time, but prosecutors denied they were giving him any special treatment or any rebate for all the media coverage since he was first arrested in August 2024.
Høiby, age 29, also faces compensation claims of nearly NOK 2 million from the women he’s charged with abusing. His sources of income remain unclear, since he has no career or held a job for very long. It’s thus unclear where the money will come from to meet such compensation claims and legal fees, but perhaps from his family.
He continues to deny the rape charges against him along with nearly all the other serious charges including violence against women, but has acknowledged guilt in various drug- and traffic offenses. He has admitted to his cocaine use over the years and also repeatedly violated restraining orders against some of his victims. Prosecutors also called for an order banning any contact with his latest girlfriend, known as “the Frogner woman” because of her apartment in Oslo’s upscale Frogner district, for the next two years.
Lead prosecutor Sturla Henriksbø said any conviction and sentencing must reflect the nature of Høiby’s crimes. “Rape and violence in close relationships are among the most serious anyone can subject another person to,” said Henriksen in court on Wednesday.
He and his colleagues evaluated each of the four alleged rapes between 2018 and 2024, along with other abuse, filming his alleged assaults without the women’s consent, transporting 3.5 kilos of marijuana and other offenses to calculate their proposed jail sentence.
Høiby had often shook his head, rolled his eyes and made other signs of objection during his lengthy trial. He claimed in his own earlier testimony that he no longer felt like he was “Marius” but rather a “monster,” after earlier saying he also felt like he was the most hated man in Norway.
Henriksbø had stressed in his closing arguments this week that Høiby “isn’t a monster, none of us is,” but that all the charges against him were serious. Henriksbø also made a point of stressing that Høiby shouldn’t be judged on “who he is (as a member of the royal family albeit without a royal title) … but rather for “what he has done.”
His defense attorneys were due to deliver their closing arguments later this week, before the judge and two lay judges head into deliberations. Høiby has been held in police custody since the trial began, after he’d threatened a former girlfriend once again on the eve of the trial. He has since filed for release.