The Republican former congressman Matt Gaetz has been accused of participating in the sex trafficking of two young women in a civil lawsuit filed on Thursday in district court in Florida.
The allegations, which Gaetz denied in a statement to the Guardian, are the latest developments in a long-running sexual abuse scandal involving the politician who resigned from Congress in November 2024.
In the 38-page lawsuit, filed in US district court for the middle district of Florida, the women identified as Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2 claim Gaetz and two others “coordinated the recruitment, payments, drugs, and travel to obtain commercial sexual acts” from them “during 2017 through January 2019”.
“The defendants collectively used their public office, power, and wealth to prey on the economic vulnerability of Plaintiffs to commit the acts,” according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit contends that the alleged victims “were recent high school graduates” at the time of the alleged misconduct.
One of the defendants, Joel Micah Greenberg, a close associate of Gaetz, and the former tax collector of Seminole county, pleaded guilty in May 2021 to six federal offenses: sex trafficking of a child, illegally producing a false identification document, aggravated identity theft, wire fraud, stalking, and conspiracy. Greenberg was sentenced to 11 years in federal prison.
Gaetz rejected the new lawsuit’s allegations in a statement to the Guardian.
“I look forward to taking the plaintiffs’ depositions because much of the conduct alleged against me is false,” he wrote. “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.”
Gaetz attached a photograph of three women in swimsuits from a social media post in September 2018 that appeared to show them on a beach in the Bahamas, with the caption: “#beers and #babes are all you ever need”.
Gaetz added: “I don’t know if this is Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2 or not. But if it is they seemed to portray their Bahamian trip differently on social media than in their lawsuit seeking money.”
The congressional report Gaetz refers to was part of a bipartisan House ethics committee investigation into his alleged misconduct. That investigation was terminated when he resigned in November 2024 from his north Florida congressional seat shortly after being nominated by Donald Trump to become attorney general.
Later that month, Gaetz withdrew from consideration to serve as attorney general amid intense scrutiny around the allegations of sex trafficking and drug use. He has repeatedly denied these accusations.
Weeks later, in December 2024, the House ethics committee said its investigation found that Gaetz made payments totaling tens of thousands of dollars to women for sex and drugs on at least 20 occasions. It also found that in 2017, Gaetz “engaged in sexual activity with a 17-year-old girl”. Gaetz denied any wrongdoing.
The complaint filed on Thursday alleges that Greenberg recruited the women through the website SeekingArrangement.com and “introduced them to Gaetz”.
The lawsuit contends that Jane Doe 1 was 20 years old when she was first introduced to Gaetz in the summer of 2017 and that Jane Doe 2 was 22 years old when Greenberg first contacted her.
“Gaetz was a sitting member of Congress, holding himself out to be one of President Donald J. Trump’s closest confidants and most loyal supporters,” the lawsuit states.
Jane Doe 1 alleges that she had sex with Gaetz at a July 2017 party at the home of one of the other named defendants. She said she was invited by Greenberg and that Gaetz “introduced himself” to her before giving her “a tour of the upstairs”. The complaint claims that the tour “ended with Gaetz having sex with Jane Doe 1 in a guest bedroom”.
Later that night, Jane Doe 1 alleges she saw Gaetz “having sex with ‘Victim A’,” who was “only 17 years old” at the time, and that Gaetz “gave Victim A $400 in cash that night, which Victim A understood to be payment for sex”.
The complaint also alleges that three days after the party, Gaetz sent Jane Doe 1 $500 by PayPal, and that it was “the first of thirteen payments he would make to her”.
“Between July 2017 and January 2019, Gaetz and Greenberg paid Jane Doe 1 on at least nineteen documented occasions,” the complaint reads, noting that “the payments ranged from $150 to $1,000”.
Jane Doe 1 said she had “no meaningful savings and no stable income” and alleges that “they led her to believe they could solve her financial problems as long as she kept performing sexual acts for them and their associates”.
Jane Doe 2 alleges that she first met Greenberg in 2017 and that he later invited her to a party at a rented house.
“Greenberg promised Jane Doe 2 that she would be ‘well compensated’ for attending but gave her little details about what would be required from her,” the complaint claims. Jane Doe 2 alleges she met Gaetz that night, that “pressed MDMA pills” were “handed out” at the party, and that she took one with Greenberg.
“Greenberg then had sex with Jane Doe 2, and Gaetz had sex with her afterward,” the complaint alleges.
The lawsuit alleges that the “defendants arranged and funded travel for Plaintiffs, other victims, and other prominent political figures to Venice Beach, Miami, Las Vegas, the Florida Keys, the Bahamas, and New York City between December 2017 and January 2019.
“These trips took Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2 to places they had never been and into rooms with men they would never otherwise have met, and every part of that access, from the flights to the hotel rooms, was paid for by men, including the Defendants, who expected sex in return,” it reads.
