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Gaetz had left office when the report was released and denied
wrongdoing. But the report helped to tank his nomination to
become attorney general in President Donald Trump's second
administration.
Two women said they were in their early 20s in 2017 when they
met Gaetz through Joel Greenberg, who was a tax official in
Seminole County and is now in prison for a raft of crimes,
including a sex crime.
Gaetz provided drugs and paid the women for sex, out-of-state
travel, lodging and other expenses, according to the lawsuit.
“Much of the conduct alleged against me is false," Gaetz said in
response.
“The lawsuit relies almost exclusively on a Congressional
Committee report that didn’t allow me to confront my accusers.
Now I will finally have that chance,” he said in a statement.
Gaetz also appeared to mock the women on the social platform X,
sharing a 2018 social media photo of the backs of three women in
bathing suits looking at the ocean in the Bahamas.
“I’m shocked nobody responded to their repeated cries for help,
posted to instagram,” he said Thursday.
The lawsuit also names Greenberg, another man and businesses
tied to Greenberg's family.
“Every part of this venture ran on an exploitative power
imbalance,” the women's attorney, Spencer Kuvin, said in the
lawsuit. “On one side stood a sitting congressman, an elected
tax collector, and a former state legislator, men with public
office, private homes, and money to spend. On the other stood
young financially vulnerable women in their early twenties.”
Gaetz hosts a political talk show on One America News Network.
He was recently appointed to the board of Triumph Gulf Coast,
which oversees how Florida spends money recovered for damage
from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
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