Matt Gaetz allegedly paid for two women to travel to New York City in 2019 to have sex with him, watch his appearance on Fox News, and attend the Broadway show Pretty Woman: The Musical.
Joel Leppard, a lawyer for the women, told ABC News that his clients testified to the House Ethics Committee that Gaetz, Donald Trump’s jaw-dropping pick for attorney general, paid twice for them to travel across states to have sex with him.
Gaetz, who has denied all allegations against him, resigned from his position as a Florida representative in Congress soon after he was announced as the prospective nominee for attorney general, and just days before the ethics committee was set to vote on whether to release the findings of its investigation into allegations that he had paid for sex and used illegal drugs.
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Leppard told ABC that Gaetz paid the women’s tickets to New York City in January 2019 for his appearance on Fox, with the promise of seeing a show afterward.
“They were asked to go and have sex with Rep. Gaetz, and then they could go out and see a show that they wanted to see that night,” Leppard said. “So essentially, take care of things, and then later on, they could have their fun.”
ABC News was able to verify that Gaetz was in the Fox News studio to appear on the show “Outnumbered” on January 4, 2019, while Pretty Woman, which is about a man who falls in love with a prostitute, was still playing on Broadway.
Alex Pfeiffer, a spokesperson for Trump’s transition team, told ABC that the women’s claims were “baseless allegations intended to derail the second Trump administration.”
“Matt Gaetz will be the next Attorney General,” Pfeiffer said. “He’s the right man for the job and will end the weaponization of our justice system.”
The women reportedly told the ethics committee that they had had sex with Gaetz between 10 and 15 times, mostly at private parties or on trips to New York City or the Bahamas.
“They did testify to the House that that was their understanding of the payments, that that’s why they were there, to provide a good time, to have fun, be free and to have sex with the gentlemen who were present, including Rep. Gaetz,” Leppard told ABC.
The parties invariably featured drugs like Molly and Ecstasy, which Gaetz liked to refer to as “party favors” and “vitamins,” Leppard said.
The women also testified that the young woman who says she had a sexual relationship with Gaetz when she was a minor was present on the trip to the Bahamas, although she was over 18 at that point.
The women voluntarily had sex with Gaetz and other men, but they said they did so in order to pay for school and rent, Leppard said. In the years since, the women have offered hours of testimony about their relationship with Gaetz across multiple investigations and have attended counseling paid for by the FBI.
While Gaetz is now technically beyond the jurisdiction of the House Ethics Committee, Democrats (and even some Republicans) have continued to call for its report to be released—and the committee has yet to offer a final decision on the matter.
