Marius Borg Høiby, the eldest son of Norway's Crown Princess Mette-Marit, was sentenced to four years in prison on Monday after being convicted of rape. The Oslo court found the 29-year-old guilty on two counts of rape and one count of domestic violence. The verdict brings to a close one of the most closely watched criminal proceedings in Norway's modern legal history, one that has placed the royal household under sustained public scrutiny for nearly two years.
Høiby had been charged with sexually assaulting four women who were asleep or otherwise unable to resist, with the alleged offences spanning from 2018 to 2024. He faced a total of 40 criminal charges, including lesser offences such as assault, drug-related crimes, and violations of a restraining order. Following a six-week trial that concluded in March, he was found guilty of two counts of rape and acquitted of two others.
The Verdict and the Sentence
Høiby was acquitted of two rape charges but convicted on several additional offences, including abuse and violent behaviour toward former partners. He was also found guilty of domestic violence against a former girlfriend between mid-2022 and the autumn of 2023, with the court hearing that he repeatedly struck her in the face, choked her, slammed a door on her, and threw objects at her. Høiby had denied the rape allegations throughout the proceedings but admitted to several of the lesser charges, including the delivery of nearly eight pounds of marijuana to an unidentified person and violating a restraining order. In three of the four rape cases, investigators recovered video footage that Høiby had filmed of the women involved, footage he is also separately accused of having recorded without their consent.
Prosecutors had asked the Oslo District Court to impose a sentence of seven years and seven months, while his defence argued he should be acquitted of the rape charges entirely and receive no more than eighteen months for the offences he had admitted to. In addition to the prison term, Høiby was ordered to pay compensation to the victims.
He had originally faced four counts of rape, two of which the court ultimately dismissed. Both Høiby and the prosecutor's office retain the right to appeal the verdict within two weeks of the ruling. His defence lawyer, Petar Sekulic, indicated Høiby intends to challenge the parts of the verdict relating to the two rape convictions and the domestic violence finding, while expressing satisfaction with the broader acquittals secured during the trial.
Inside the Six-Week Trial
The trial was one of the most closely watched legal proceedings in Norwegian history, lasting six weeks and concluding in March 2026. Høiby denied most of the charges against him but pleaded guilty to several lesser offences, including a drug charge and breaking a restraining order, and partially admitted to assaulting a woman while denying that the conduct amounted to abuse. During testimony, Høiby addressed the intense media attention his case had drawn, telling the court: "I'm not Marius any more, I'm a monster." Prosecutor Andreas Kruszewski responded that the fact Høiby committed criminal acts after becoming a public figure under media scrutiny should not be treated as grounds for a reduced sentence.
State Attorney Sturla Henriksbø told the court that rape and abuse within close relationships represent some of the most serious harms a person can inflict on another, and that the sentencing needed to reflect that severity. In each of the rape cases, the women involved were either asleep or otherwise incapacitated at the time, according to prosecutors, though Høiby maintained in court that he did not engage in sexual activity with women who were not awake. Following the verdict, Prosecutor Sturla Henriksbo described the outcome as a victory for Norway's justice system, telling AFP that the ruling demonstrated that no one stands above the law regardless of their family connections.
Høiby was not present in court for the sentencing due to health reasons and watched the proceedings via video link from prison. He had experienced a medical episode in the preceding week that required hospitalisation overnight under medical supervision, though the cause was not disclosed. He had been held in pre-trial detention, and one of his lawyers had unsuccessfully requested that he be permitted to serve the remainder of that detention at the royal family's Skaugum estate.
The Royal Family's Position
Høiby is the stepson of Crown Prince Haakon and the son of Crown Princess Mette-Marit, who married into the Norwegian royal family in 2001. Despite his close personal ties to the royal household, his legal status within the institution of the monarchy has remained a distinct issue throughout the case.
Crown Prince Haakon stated before the trial began that Marius Borg Høiby is not a member of the Royal House of Norway and is therefore an autonomous adult, while affirming that the family cares about him and considers him an important member of their household. Mette-Marit, Haakon, and Høiby's half-siblings, Princess Ingrid Alexandra and Prince Sverre Magnus, did not attend the trial in person at any point during its six-week run.
The case has nonetheless drawn sustained attention to the royal family, given Høiby's lifelong proximity to the monarchy despite holding no formal royal title or constitutional role.
Background to the Charges
The investigation that led to these charges began over a year before the trial, following a police inquiry into Høiby that started after his arrest on suspicion of assaulting a girlfriend. Prosecutor Sturla Henriksbo had stated that in at least three of the alleged rape cases, Høiby met the women on the same day, had consensual sexual contact, and was then accused of assaulting them while they were unable to resist.
At the formal opening of his trial in February 2026, Høiby pleaded not guilty to the rape charges, while entering guilty pleas on several of the more minor counts against him. He had also been arrested on a separate occasion shortly before the trial began, on suspicion of assault, making threats with a knife, and violating a restraining order, resulting in four additional weeks of remand.
With the verdict and sentence now delivered, attention turns to whether either party files a formal appeal within the two-week window allowed under Norwegian law, a step that would extend the legal proceedings surrounding the case further into 2026.
