>>22017924
Yeah, you want an AG that’s attended those Drug fueled orgies…. He’ll recognize the criminals!
In the summer of 2017, U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Florida Panhandle Republican, attended a party filled with drugs and paid escorts that was hosted by former state Rep. Chris Dorworth at his Heathrow home, according to witness testimony in newly filed federal court documents.
One of the escorts attending the get-together was the 17-year-old girl — known only as A.B. in court filings — who is at the center of the Joel Greenberg sex-trafficking scandal. Call girls roamed the premises with “access to the bedrooms in the Dorworth residence to engage in sexual activities, as well as alcohol, cocaine, ecstasy, also known as molly and marijuana,” according to statements quoted in the documents.
The case-file material, emerging as part of Dorworth’s April 2023 federal lawsuit against his former friend Greenberg, includes some of the most extensive details made public so far regarding a sex-trafficking controversy that has swirled around Gaetz for several years.
But while witnesses place him at the scene of illicit activity, the documents don’t include allegations or evidence that Gaetz himself used illegal drugs or had sex with the underage girl, a charge he has denied and federal investigators last year chose not to pursue. One document does quote the girl saying she had sex with Dorworth in exchange for $1,000, an allegation Dorworth, now a lobbyist, strongly disputed on Friday.
The tale told in the documents — primarily in a document submitted by Greenberg’s ex-wife that recounts evidence gathered as part of the suit — is lurid. It includes descriptions of two separate parties at Dorworth’s house a week apart, both attended by Gaetz although A.B. is only mentioned as attending the first one.
A.B. had just completed her junior year at a local high school and drove her mother’s car through the upscale community’s security entrance at about 6:15 p.m. on July 15, 2017, the date of the first party.
Upon arrival, attendees were told to put their cell phones into a large bowl on a counter, apparently to prevent photos and videos. As the party went on, A.B. was naked among the adult attendees, according to material in the document from Greenberg’s ex-wife Abby attributed to an affidavit from one of the escorts, identified as K.M.
Besides Gaetz, Dorworth and Greenberg also were at the party at the 8,200-square foot, six-bedroom home on Whitstable Court, according to K.M. Greenberg had taken office as Seminole’s tax collector just six months earlier.
Jacob Bliss, a spokesman for Gaetz office, said in a brief email to the Sentinel Friday that Gaetz “has never participated” in the alleged events.
“If people said otherwise, they are either confused or lying,” Bliss said.
Dorworth eventually dropped his federal lawsuit against Greenberg this month, without giving a reason.
But now, Greenberg’s family, and the other defendants are seeking to recoup hundreds of thousands of dollars spent in attorneys fees, court costs and other expenses defending themselves against Dorworth’s litigation. That led to the filing of hundreds of pages of documents Thursday night.
Other material collected as part of the case remains sealed, including an interview with A.B., although it is briefly excerpted in the material from Abby Greenberg. That excerpt quotes the underage girl as saying she “engaged in various sexual activities” with Dorworth in a hotel in Lake Mary in the summer of 2017 while Joel Greenberg watched. She also says that at the conclusion of the encounter, “Mr. Greenberg provided me with an envelope with one thousand dollars in cash and said to me ‘this is from Chris’ or words to that effect.”
Dorworth denied ever meeting the girl in a Friday text message interview with the Orlando Sentinel, and said again as he had previously that he did not have sex with her. He also said he did not attend the July 15 party at his home.
“I was not there that evening,” Dorworth said by text. “I was at a friend’s birthday party on a lake far away.”
Attorneys for the defendants in Dorworth’s federal lawsuit against Greenberg and his family and businesses, however, presented Dorworth with evidence that he received phone calls from a cell tower less than two miles from his Heathrow home to an area in Maitland several times in the afternoon on the day of the July 15 party. He then received calls even closer to his home that evening, according to court records.
A week later, on July 22, a second party allegedly was held at Dorworth’s home, according to lawsuit documents from another female escort identified as L.P.