Underage girl at center of Gaetz probe began sex work to pay for braces: report
Mere months after he was floated for the position of U.S. Attorney General by President Donald Trump, former congressman Matt Gaetz is a trivia question, his political career effectively dead. That didn’t stop the New York Times from piling on, revealing heartbreaking details about the underage girl whose allegations upended Gaetz’s career.
In a report published on Thursday, the Times shared quotes from the lawyer for the unidentified girl who claimed she had sex with Gaetz at a Florida house party and was paid $400 for the night. Her attorney, Laura B. Wolf, said she was a “then-homeless 17-year-old high schooler” who turned to sex work as a way to pay for braces.
“The vulnerable circumstances most crime victims face are rarely known to the public,” Wolf said. “Although my client’s circumstances were revealed outside of her control, I hope it helps for the public to see a fuller and more human picture of her than the press has reported on to date.”
In a statement to the Times, Gaetz said the girl’s version of events was “fiction.”
“I never had sex with this person,” he said. “This person threatened me with a lawsuit if I didn’t pay her $2.3 million. She never sued me because her story is fiction.”
Facing the release of a report on his conduct by the House Ethics Committee, Gaetz resigned from Congress last November. Amid mounting scrutiny, Gaetz withdrew from his nomination to be the country’s top lawyer. The committee’s report found “substantial evidence that Representative Gaetz violated House Rules and other standards of conduct prohibiting prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, impermissible gifts, special favors or privileges and obstruction of Congress.”
Gaetz has maintained his innocence, telling Charlie Kirk that he would “be under indictment and probably in a prison cell” if the report’s claims were true.
Read more
about this topic