Two women filed a lawsuit in Florida this week accusing former Rep. Matt Gaetz of coordinating a sex trafficking scheme involving drugs.
The women, who are unnamed, filed the complaint in the Middle District of Florida on Monday, alleging Gaetz and two of his friends were involved in exploiting vulnerable young women by paying them for sexual encounters and offering them drugs. While he was in Congress, Gaetz paid the two plaintiffs bringing the lawsuit around $10,000 for sexual encounters, according to the complaint.
One of the women was 20, and the other was 22 when they were introduced to Gaetz in 2017, the complaint says. One of the women alleged she saw Gaetz having sex with a girl who was 17 at the time. Joel Greenberg and Christopher Dorworth, Gaetz’s friends, are also named as defendants in the lawsuit and allegedly coordinated sexual encounters for Gaetz and other prominent political figures. Greenberg is serving an 11-year prison sentence in Florida on sex trafficking and fraud convictions.
Gaetz said that “much of the conduct” he is being accused of is false.
“I look forward to taking the plaintiffs’ depositions because much of the conduct alleged against me is false,” he told the Miami Herald. “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.”
The lawsuit claims that the defendants “collectively used their public office, power, and wealth to prey on the economic vulnerability of Plaintiffs to commit the acts.”
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Gaetz served in the House from 2017 through 2024. He resigned from Congress after President Donald Trump nominated him to serve as attorney general.
That nomination fell through after Gaetz became mired in allegations of sexual misconduct contained in a House Ethics Committee report. The committee’s report, released in December 2024, claimed there was “substantial evidence” that Gaetz had paid several women, including at least one minor, to have sex with him. The ethics report also alleged the former lawmaker had violated Florida laws that prohibit prostitution and sex with a minor.