In the wake of a bombshell congressional report released last week finding that former U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz broke Florida laws for statutory rape and prostitution while serving in Congress, local police and prosecutors say they don’t expect to investigate further, with one key agency saying too much time has elapsed since the alleged crimes to bring any charges.

The House Ethics Committee found “substantial evidence” that Gaetz paid regularly for sex between 2017 and 2020, documenting payments to women recruited online, text messages about arranging meet-ups and sexual encounters around Florida, primarily in the Orlando area. The most serious accusation is that Gaetz, now 42, paid for sex with a 17-year-old high school student on ecstasy at a house party in 2017.

“Representative Gaetz took advantage of the economic vulnerability of young women to lure them into sexual activity,” the report concluded.

But despite the findings, Gaetz — who denies all allegations — may not face any further inquiries. Federal authorities informed him in 2023 following a years-long investigation that they did not intend to bring charges, and local police and prosecutors so far say they aren’t taking actions in response to the Ethics Committee’s report.

Police in Seminole County, where the alleged 2017 incident with a minor occurred, told the Miami Herald that the window to charge Gaetz under state law closed while he was under federal investigation. The sheriff’s office opened the initial investigation that led federal authorities to begin looking into sex-trafficking allegations against Gaetz.

“Since the statute of limitations for these alleged crimes has expired and no victim or sworn affidavit has been provided, we are unable to conduct an independent investigation,” a spokesperson for the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.

A spokesperson for police in Lake Mary, where the then-17-year-old girl said she had sex twice with Gaetz at a former Florida lawmaker’s home, said the department does not have an open investigation. The office for State Attorney Phil Archer, who oversees prosecutions in Seminole County, confirmed the office is not conducting its own investigation.

Police in other local Florida jurisdictions mentioned in the report as places where Gaetz may have engaged in prostitution either did not respond to questions or said they had no active investigation.

When asked if Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody was taking any action related to the report, Statewide Prosecutor Nick Cox said that allegations would be “investigated by law enforcement in the appropriate jurisdiction.”

Attempts to reach representatives for Gaetz were unsuccessful. But Gaetz, who resigned from his North Florida congressional seat after being briefly nominated to serve as attorney general by President-elect Donald Trump, has publicly denied that he was at the 2017 party mentioned in the report, or ever took illicit drugs.

In a statement to the committee on Sept. 26, Gaetz wrote that “the lawful, consensual, sexual activities of adults are not the business of Congress.” He has characterized money payments as gifts, writing on Dec. 25 X: “I provided financial support to about a dozen women I dated over half a decade in my mid 30’s.”

“Every investigation into me ends the same way,” Gaetz wrote on X in June 2024. “My exoneration.”

Florida law

While the report does not appear to have motivated local authorities in Florida to investigate the politician further, attorneys and experts who spoke to the Herald said that Gaetz’s legal troubles may not be over — and that Florida law offers narrow windows that could allow future prosecution.

They agreed that the window within which prosecutors can bring charges against a suspect in Florida for soliciting prostitution and unlawful sexual activity with minors 16 or 17 years of age has expired.

But experts are divided on whether other laws — including those governing sex trafficking — may apply in the 2017 incident with a minor described in the report. The committee found insufficient evidence that Gaetz violated federal human trafficking laws, but in Florida law, paying for sex with a minor can be considered sex trafficking, and cases can be pursued at any time.

“Even if she wanted to, she couldn’t consent,” said Robert Malove, a Florida criminal trial lawyer who said that the 2017 incident could fall under human trafficking. “Eighteen or younger, the law presumes you’re incapable of consent.”

The report does not address potential violations of state human-trafficking laws.

Others said that testimony cited in the report that drugs were present in the 2017 incident could potentially support a sexual-battery charge against Gaetz. Prosecutors have an eight-year window to bring charges for cases involving alleged actions between 2015 and 2020. Marci Hamilton, the founder of Child USA, a nonprofit organization focused on child abuse, said that would be the most “generous reading” of Florida law in this case — and would give prosecutors until 2025 to bring charges.

“All we know is what we’re hearing through this report,” said Hamilton. “It really does depend in the end on facts the report may not include.”

But Joshua Monteiro, a partner of Sammis Law Firm, said that it’s unlikely, given the information in the report, that the alleged incident described would constitute sexual battery. The Ethics Committee report notes that all of the women interviewed described the sex as consensual.

“Unless she alleges some kind of force or coercion, they wouldn’t be able to prosecute him under the statute of limitations,” he said.

'I feel violated'

Attorneys and advocates generally agreed that, while the clock had run out on bringing charges for most of the allegations laid out in the report, the accusations related to paying for sex with a minor could still lead to further investigation.

On July 15, 2017, according to the Ethics Committee’s report, a 17-year-old girl attended a party at former Florida Rep. Chris Dorworth’s house in Lake Mary, Seminole County, where she said she had sex with Gaetz twice. The woman, identified in the report as Victim A, told Ethics Committee investigators that Gaetz paid her $400 that evening. At the time, she was a junior in high school, and said she was under the influence of ecstasy.

While the committee found that Gaetz was unaware she was a minor, the law does not view that as a defense. The committee said that after Gaetz learned her age over a month later, he maintained contact and paid her for sex again less than six months after she turned 18.

Joel Greenberg, a former Seminole County tax collector who, according to the Ethics Committee report, helped recruit and pay women for Gaetz and himself, is currently serving an 11-year prison sentence for crimes that include sex trafficking the same woman while she was a minor.

“(Gaetz) would make me feel bad about not having sex with him or Joel Greenberg,” the woman told investigators with the Ethics Committee. “(W)hen I look back on certain moments, I feel violated.”

The report acknowledged that Greenberg’s credibility has been called into question, after he was found to have forged letters falsely accusing a political opponent of having a sexual relationship with a high schooler. It noted the committee decided to “not rely exclusively on information provided by Mr. Greenberg in making any findings.”

Dorworth, who is not accused in the report of any criminal behavior, previously resolved a federal defamation lawsuit he brought against Victim A — referenced in his lawsuit as A.B. — and Greenberg for alleged defamation. He called the report a “congressional hit job” and said it contained material inaccuracies about his testimony.

Dorworth referenced a gate log for visitors to his house that night that does not include Gaetz. Dorworth says he was on a boat while the party was ongoing and was not at the house.

Alex Andrade, an attorney representing Dorworth, told the Herald that he viewed the report as coming to the “complete opposite” conclusion as the DOJ, with “less evidence.” He said that Dorworth is continuing to pursue legal action against Greenberg in state court for “witness tampering, spoliation of evidence and fraudulent transfers of assets to avoid financial liabilities.”

Attempts to reach attorneys for Victim A were unsuccessful.

Testimony from at least seven women who say they had sex with Gaetz is included in the report, along with descriptions of 12 women in addition to Victim A who received payments from him. The payments ranged from $200 to a woman in 2018 to over $63,000 paid to his former girlfriend, whom he paid an additional $50,025 for attorneys at the onset of federal investigation, according to the report.

One woman, who had previously had sex with Gaetz, told the Committee that she asked Gaetz to help with her tuition when she was 21 years old, according to the report.

He agreed, she said, but when she went to meet him at a hotel, Greenberg and a 20-year-old woman were also present. They had sex, and Gaetz gave her a $750 check with “tuition reimbursement” in the memo line, the report states. The Committee reports that she received over $4,000 from Gaetz between 2018 and 2019.

She told the Committee that the encounter “could potentially be a form of coercion because I really needed the money.”

Experts told the Herald that, if there was alleged coercion or force in Gaetz’s interactions with the women cited, that could open other avenues to prosecution, such as sex trafficking or sexual battery.

“I think about it all the time,” said another woman, who received over $5,000 from Gaetz in the same time frame, according to the report. “I still see him when I turn on the TV and there’s nothing anyone can do. It’s frustrating to know I lived a reality that he denies.”

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(This story was produced with financial support from the Esserman Family Foundation in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners. The Miami Herald maintains full editorial control of this work.)

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