Federal agents have seized a phone belonging to Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) as part of their ongoing criminal investigation of the Congressman, according to a new report from POLITICO. Gaetz has been under federal investigation over issues including potential child sex trafficking and possibly paying women for sex in violation of federal anti-prostitution provisions, among other issues. He has denied the most serious allegations, but his insistence that the claims are merely part of some political phishing expedition is hollow. His phone was seized last year, before the Biden administration even took over.
As POLITICO put it, “Gaetz’s predicament as the subject of a serious investigation became clearer this winter when federal agents executed a search warrant and seized his iPhone.” That seizure apparently took place late last year — the Congressman changed his number in December. According to the same report, federal authorities have also seized Gaetz’s ex-girlfriend’s phone.
Ex-county official Joel Greenberg, a Central Florida resident and longtime Gaetz associate, is currently facing a slew of federal charges including child sex trafficking, and Gaetz is suspected of possibly victimizing the same then-17-year-old covered by that charge against Greenberg. This individual was apparently part of a September 2018 trip that Gaetz took with associates to the Bahamas, which unfolded shortly after she’d turned 18. That trip included a total of at least five “young women,” according to POLITICO, and it also included, besides Gaetz, then-state legislator Halsey Beshears and Central Florida hand surgeon Jason Pirozzolo.
A source insisted to POLITICO that no prostitution took place during the trip, but federal investigators obviously aren’t about to close up shop right here and now because one person claimed everything was above board. According to POLITICO, three of the young women on the trip — whose connections with Gaetz and the others aren’t immediately clear — “looked so young when they returned on Beshears’ private plane that U.S. Customs briefly stopped and questioned him.” Beshears, who recently resigned from his role as Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation Secretary, has apparently informed associates that he believes that he is a subject of the ongoing criminal investigation.
Gaetz recently hired a criminal defense team, including lawyers Marc Mukasey and Isabelle Kirshner, and individuals involved in Greenberg’s case recently revealed that he was preparing to take a plea deal, although that hasn’t materialized yet. According to a new report from The New York Times, Greenberg “has been providing investigators with information since last year about an array of topics, including Mr. Gaetz’s activities.”
