Matt Gaetz is facing a federal civil lawsuit accusing him and two others of being involved with a sex trafficking scheme, the latest scandal plaguing the former Republican congressman and short-lived attorney general nominee.
Two women sued Gaetz and his associates — now-convicted ex-Seminole County tax collector Joel Greenberg and former Republican state Rep. Christopher Dorworth — in the Middle District of Florida this week, alleging that Gaetz and his associates had supplied the women, who were 20 and 22 at the time, with drugs to help orchestrate sexual encounters and also moved victims across state lines.
“Every part of this venture ran on an exploitative power imbalance,” Spencer Kuvin and Joel Leppard, attorneys for the plaintiffs, wrote in the suit — adding that the men allegedly exploited “financially vulnerable women in their early twenties.”
“The venture assumed that women with so little would never be believed over men with so much,” the complaint states.
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The lawsuit was first reported by investigative reporter Julie K. Brown of the Miami Herald on Thursday.
Gaetz said he welcomed the lawsuit as a chance to confront his accusers face to face.
“I look forward to taking the plaintiffs’ depositions because much of the conduct alleged against me is false,” Gaetz said in a statement to the 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.”
President Donald Trump nominated Gaetz for U.S. attorney general in November 2024, but the embattled former congressman withdrew his name from consideration weeks later after facing mounting pressure from his Republican colleagues and a formal congressional ethics investigation. Gaetz initially faced a years-long Justice Department investigation concerning the sexual misconduct allegations, though prosecutors ultimately did not charge Gaetz with any wrongdoing.
The House Ethics Committee released a bombshell report in December 2024 presenting evidence that the Florida Republican paid tens of thousands of dollars to women in exchange for sexual activity — including an encounter with a 17-year-old in 2017 — and allegedly used illegal drugs, among other ethics violations.
The 17-year-old victim is not involved in Monday’s lawsuit, but one of the plaintiffs contends that she witnessed Gaetz with a girl who was 17, according to the complaint.
The lawsuit alleges that Gaetz, Greenberg and Dorworth supplied the women with drugs in order to facilitate sexual encounters, citing incidents that occurred between 2017 and 2019. The women in their suit also accused the three men of arranging and funding travel for alleged victims of a sex trafficking scheme to Miami, Las Vegas, the Florida Keys and New York City. They also alleged that prominent political figures were also present on the trips.
The young women, identified as Jane Does 1 and 2, met Gaetz in the summer of 2017 after Greenberg recruited them through the website SeekingArangement.com — a platform known for connecting older, wealthier men with younger women.
Seeking.com, which rebranded from SeekingArrangement.com in 2019 to move away from its “sugar-daddy” image, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In the complaint, Jane Doe 1 reported being given $6,000 and Jane Doe 2 received more than $4,000 from Gaetz. Payment descriptions included text reading “Being my friend,” and “car deductible” and “Love you.”
After leaving Congress, Gaetz started hosting a political talk show titled “The Matt Gaetz Show” on One America News Network. Gaetz also serves on the Triumph Gulf Coast Board, which is tasked with distributing money from a BP settlement struck following the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
OAN and Triumph Gulf Coast also did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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