’90 Day Fiancé’: Paul Says Karine Lied About Being Human Trafficking Victim – Newsweek

One of the stars of the TLC reality series 90 Day Fiancé is accusing his spouse of lying about being a victim of human trafficking.

Paul Staehle appeared on The Domenick Nati Show Thursday to talk about the custody battle over the two children he had with his now-estranged wife, Karine Staehle. In the interview, he alleged that Karine was taking advantage of programs meant to help human trafficking victims.

“She's in a government … program where they give her—they gave her a house,” Paul said, “This thing is like three levels. It's huge. She gets all her bills paid and taken care of, so she's set up.

“She quit her job and moved in that house, so she's able to relax, don't have to worry about work, don't have to worry about paying bills. From my understanding, they're gonna give her a car. So then she'll have a car, I guess they paid for her car and her car insurance,” he continued. “Then she told me, after I gave her all the furniture in my house, she said, ‘Oh, yeah, the program was gonna give me all new furniture, but I don't want to wait two weeks.'”

When Nati asked if she was in a program for abused women, Paul said that it was a program to help victims of human trafficking.

“She's claiming that she's a victim of human trafficking. So as a victim of human trafficking, they're giving us all this free stuff,” Paul said.

However, when Nati asked who trafficked her, Paul demurred.

“I'm not getting into it, man, we were on television show. We were on a TV show for four years. So I mean, apparently she's a victim of human trafficking. I won't get into it, but someone else took her in there, the claims were made that she was, you know, came to America and everything else. And she was human trafficked and things against her will all the stuff,” Paul said.

“By you?” Nati asked.

“Apparently, that was one of the claims,” Paul said.

He added that Catholic Charities of Louisville, Kentucky were involved in the program helping Karine, and were receiving federal funding to do so. Later in the interview, Paul added that Karine formerly was a member of the subscription site OnlyFans, but stopped in fear of it jeopardizing the help from the program.

“She's not a victim of human trafficking, right?” Nati asked.

“I don't know man. I don't know how it even got that far. We were on a TV show for four years. I mean, we had a camera crew so far up our wazoo for a long time, so it's beyond me [how she could be trafficked],” Paul said.

Newsweek reached out to Karine and the Catholic Charities of Louisville for comment.

Paul and Karine first appeared on 90 Day Fiancé: The Other Way, and even on that series, their relationship could be rocky. On the show, Paul had attempted to move to Karine's native Brazil, but his former criminal record resulted in his visa being denied. Karine later moved to the United States with Paul, but though they originally wanted to get her an American visa, that process proved too expensive.

The couple has two children, Pierre and Ethan, who are currently in foster care, according to In Touch magazine. In June, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children listed Pierre as missing, and said that he could be with Paul, the magazine reports. As of July 3, however, Pierre was “located and safe.”

90 Day Fiancé blogger John Yates appeared on Instagram Live on July 1, In Touch reported, saying that Paul told him that Karine went to the judge in the custody case, and accused Paul of trying to kill her. Yates says that the judge got “p**sed off and took the kids away from both Paul and Karine and even Paul's mom.” The magazine says Paul and Karine's most recent court date was Monday, July 11.

90 Day Fiancé airs Sundays at 8 p.m. ET on TLC and is available to stream on Discovery+.

Update 7/14, 11:30 p.m.: This article has been updated to include more context from the interview with Paul.