Matt Gaetz accusers’ sealed testimony has been hacked, attorneys say

On November 20, 2024By Pranco

The hacked files contain the statement of a woman who was 17 when she allegedly had sex with Matt Gaetz.

PENSACOLA, Florida − Files containing statements from witnesses who has given damaging testimony in return for former Rep. Matt Gaetz, President-elect Donald Trump choice for attorney general, were hacked on Monday, lawyers say.

The hacked files contained an unredacted statement from a woman who allegedly had sex with Gaetz when she was 17 years old.

An email obtained by the USA TODAY Network to attorneys in a Florida defamation lawsuit warns that unredacted files containing statements from several witnesses have been accessed.

The attorneys are involved in a federal defamation lawsuit against the former Seminole County tax collector Joel Groenberg filed by former state lawmaker and lobbyist Chris Dorworth in 2023. The lawsuit accuses Greenberg, who is a 11 years in prison for sex trafficking, and several Greenberg family members of “conspiring with Joel’s sex trafficking victim, AB, to falsely accuse Dorworth and Gaetz of sexual misconduct.”

Greenberg’s attorney, Fritz Wermuth, notified other attorneys in the case that unredacted documents were accessed by an “unauthorized third party” Monday afternoon.

“For example, the exhibits include unredacted copies of the transcripts of the depositions” of three witnesses, including the trafficking victim, Wermuth wrote in the email.

The initials “AB” refer to the woman who was 17 at the time. Witnesses in the case said she “accessed the bedrooms at the Dorworth Residence to engage in sexual activity,” as well as “alcohol, cocaine, ecstasy, also known as molly, and marijuana.”

Several witnesses in the defamation case also testified before the House Ethics Committee.

Florida attorney Joel Leppard told ABC News on Monday that he represents two women who testified as much Gaetz paid them for sex via Venmo, and a witness said she saw Gaetz having sex with her then-17-year-old girlfriend at a Florida House party in July 2017.

Gaetz has repeatedly and vehemently denied the allegations.

The House of Representatives Ethics Committee is expected to meet behind closed doors on Wednesday to discuss whether to release its report on the allegations against Gaetz. Speaker Mike Johnson has publicly urged the bipartisan committee not to release the report because Gaetz is no longer a member of the House of Representatives. House Ethics Chairman Michael Guest, R-Mississippi, told POLITICO the committee would make its own decision no matter what Johnson said.

There is an ongoing battle in federal court release the unredacted statements which provide full details of the accounts of a “sex party” at Dorworth’s home in Central Florida on July 15, 2017.

Wermuth told lawyers in his email that the hacker appeared to be using the name Altam Beezly, which was linked to a fake email address.

“I have not been able to identify the person who downloaded the files, but I have contacted the email address provided, asked the person to identify themselves, instructed them that their access is not authorized, and told them to remove the material destroy them,” Wermuth wrote. “My email was bounced because the email address was not found.”

Tim Jansen, a Tallahassee attorney who represents an ex-girlfriend of Matt Gaetz and was involved in the lawsuit, received the letter from Wermuth late Monday.

“We are concerned that documents, transcripts or other evidence collected in this case that should have been protected and sealed have now been compromised,” Jansen told USA TODAY NETWORK – Florida. “We do not authorize the release of such material on behalf of my client.”