Gaetz may have paid women for sex and drugs, although the Committee could not determine the specific dates or locations for all of them. To the extent Representative Gaetz paid money to women in connection with those trips, at least some such transactions are reflected in the chart discussed in the prior section.
One of the women that Mr. Greenberg met on SeekingArrangement.com and introduced to Representative Gaetz in or around March 2017 became Representative Gaetz’s girlfriend, when he was almost 35 and she was 21 years old; their relationship continued for over two years. The relationship was not exclusive, and the Committee received evidence that Representative Gaetz’s then-girlfriend sometimes participated with him in sexual encounters with other women who were active on the website or otherwise involved in sex-for-money arrangements. The Committee also obtained text messages where she appeared to act as an intermediary between Representative Gaetz and the women he paid for sex. She herself was paid tens of thousands of dollars by Representative Gaetz over the course of their two-year relationship; she stated “Matt always paid for anything for me.”[1] However, she invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in response to several questions, including what the purpose of specific payments was, whether Representative Gaetz ever paid her money for sex, and whether she was aware of Representative Gaetz paying others for sex. She also invoked her Fifth Amendment privilege when asked to explain an increase in payments from Representative Gaetz in 2019, whether any of the payments from Representative Gaetz were related to drugs, and whether payments she received from Mr. Greenberg were related to Representative Gaetz.
The Committee obtained messages between Mr. Greenberg and a 20-year-old woman he met through SeekingArrangement.com who noted, “I usually do $400 per meet.” As shown in the following exchange, Mr. Greenberg and the woman made plans to each bring a friend to their meet. The Committee found that the language used by the woman and amount proposed were consistent with typical “pay per meet” arrangements made by users of SeekingArrangement.com at that time.[2]
- ↑ 18(a) Interview of Woman 1. This amount does not include the $50,025 Representative Gaetz paid her attorneys at the outset of DOJ’s investigation. His then-girlfriend indicated he paid for her attorneys “because he cares for me, wants me to be protected and safe.” Id. Other witnesses indicated that they understood Representative Gaetz to have a financial relationship with his then-girlfriend.
- ↑ See, e.g., Lauren Seabrook, UCF Sugar Babies Talk Sugar Daddy Foot Fetish, Arrangements Netting Up to $500 a Date, WFTV9 (Apr. 26, 2019), https://www.wftv.com/news/9-investigates/ucf-sugar-babies-explainarrangements-that-net-up-to-500-a-date-talk-sugar-daddy-foot-fetish/943137086; Anonymous, I’m a ‘Sugar Baby’ Who Gets Paid $500 a Date – Here’s What It’s Really Like to Date Sugar Daddies and Get Cash, Gifts, and 5-Star Hotel Stays, Business Insider (Aug. 8, 2022), https://www.businessinsider.com/sugar-baby-relationship sugardaddy-what-its-like-2019-8; Reddit (r/sugarlifestyleforum), https://www.reddit.com/r/sugarlifestyleforum.
