The Oslo District Court sentenced Marius Borg Høiby to four years in prison on Monday and found him guilty on 34 of the 40 charges against him. The 29-year-old watched the verdict by video from prison, after a case that put violence, rape allegations and the Norwegian royal family under intense strain.
That is why the ruling is drawing attention now: it is the latest and most serious turn in a case that has been followed closely in Norway and beyond. Høiby, who is not in the line of succession, had denied all four rape allegations during the trial, making the court’s split decision on the charges central to the outcome people are reading about today.
The convictions included violence against an ex-girlfriend and two rape charges. At the same time, the court acquitted him of two other rape accusations under Norwegian law for lack of sufficient evidence. In its reasoning, the court said a video of sexual acts from 2018 at Skaugum had been reviewed in the case, and Judge Jon Sverdrup Efjestad said it was proven that the victim was asleep during the recordings.
That mix of conviction and acquittal is what makes the verdict harder to sum up than a simple win or loss. Høiby was found guilty on most of the indictment, but not on every rape allegation brought against him, leaving the final judgment serious without being total. His defense lawyers also pushed again for his release from pre-trial detention after the verdict, with Petar Sekulic saying he had been expected to prepare mentally for everything, while Ellen Holager Andenæs said release was very important for him in this situation.
A court of appeals had recently rejected Høiby’s release, which means the defense is still fighting on the custody issue even after the sentence was handed down. Whether a formal appeal has been filed is not yet clear, but the next move matters because the prison term now sits at the center of a case that has already become a burden for the Norwegian royal family. Royal family expert Kristi Marie Skrede said the verdict hits the family hard, noting that public support has fallen in polls, while Mette-Marit’s serious lung disease and place on a transplant waiting list add to the pressure around the monarchy. The sentence leaves Høiby facing years in prison, and the only unanswered question that matters next is how quickly his legal team turns that defeat into the next round of the fight.
