Oslo District Court sentenced Marius Borg Høiby, the 29-year-old son of Crown Princess Mette-Marit, to four years in prison after finding him guilty of raping two women and committing several other offences. His lawyers said the judgment would be appealed.
A three-judge panel acquitted Høiby on two other rape charges. He had denied all four allegations. The convictions involved a woman at the crown prince’s Skaugum estate in 2018 and another woman in Oslo in 2024. Judges concluded each was asleep and unable to resist at the relevant time, according to the BBC’s account of the 128-page ruling.
The prosecution had requested a sentence of seven years and seven months, while the defence sought 18 months. Høiby attended the verdict by video rather than appearing in courtroom 250, with unspecified health reasons given for his absence. Defence lawyer Petar Sekulic later renewed a request for his release. The court refused, citing a risk that Høiby could contact a woman he had been convicted of assaulting after previously breaching a restraining order.
Alongside the rape findings, the court convicted Høiby of abusing former girlfriend Nora Haukland and inflicting serious bodily harm on another partner. He was cleared of allegations involving women he met at an Oslo hotel in 2024 and in the Lofoten islands in 2023. The case concerned six women in total.
Video files discovered on Høiby’s phone formed important evidence. The women in the four rape cases were described as asleep or otherwise incapacitated and had not known about the recorded incidents until police found the material after his arrest. The judges accepted the evidence in two cases but concluded that the other two charges were not proved to the required standard.
The court ordered Høiby to pay a combined 640,000 Norwegian kroner in compensation to four women. An appeal could subject disputed portions of the verdict and sentence to further judicial review. The acquittals and convictions should therefore be reported separately rather than treating the entire indictment as either established or dismissed.
Høiby is not a royal and holds no royal title, although he grew up in the family after his mother married Crown Prince Haakon. Norway’s palace said the courts had considered the matter and declined further comment.
The outcome leaves a mixed but serious judgment: two rape convictions, two rape acquittals, findings on abuse and violence, financial compensation and a custodial sentence below the prosecution request. The defence’s announced appeal means the legal process was not necessarily complete. Until an appellate court acts, however, the district court judgment and four-year sentence remain the authoritative outcome reflected in the supplied reporting.
