Woman testified to House Ethics Committee that Gaetz had sex with her when she was 17: Sources

The woman at the center of a year-long Justice Department investigation into sex-trafficking allegations surrounding Rep. Matt Gaetz testified to the House Ethics Committee that the now-former Florida congressman had sex with her when she was 17 years old, sources familiar with the investigation told ABC News.

President-elect Donald Trump announced Wednesday that Gaetz had been tapped to serve as attorney general and oversee the very branch of government that previously conducted its own investigation into him, which ended last year without charges.

Gaetz resigned from office after Trump’s announcement. This came as the House Ethics Committee was in the final stages of its investigation, sources said, adding that the committee was preparing to meet this week to consider whether to release a final report on the case.

Over the summer, the House Ethics Committee subpoenaed the woman at the center of the investigation — who is now in her 20s — and she sat through several days of testimony, testifying before the committee that Gaetz had sex with her when she was a minor in high school, sources close to the investigation said.

“These allegations are fabricated and would constitute perjury to Congress,” Gaetz said in response to ABC News’ reporting. “This false smear after a three-year criminal investigation should be viewed with great skepticism.”

The Justice Department spent years investigating the allegations against Gaetz, including allegations of obstruction of justice, before informing Gaetz last year that it would not press charges.

Gaetz has long denied any wrongdoing in connection with the Justice Department investigation. In September, he released a detailed response to questions sent to him by the House Ethics Committee, which has been investigating allegations of alleged sexual misconduct and illegal drug use, repeating his denial of the allegations.

“Your September 4th correspondence asks if I have engaged in sexual activity with anyone under the age of 18. The answer to that question is an unequivocally NO. You may apply that answer to every version of this question, in all forums,” Gaetz said in a statement posted on his social media account.

“The committee’s star witness, Joel Greenberg, is a criminal liar who implicates others in his lies … Greenberg was originally indicted for attempting to frame a local high school teacher as a pedophile,” Gaetz added regarding the former Seminole County tax. collects Joel Greenberg, who pleaded guilty to accusing a teacher who ran against him of a sex crime.

The woman’s allegation about Gaetz became part of the investigation following allegations by Greenberg, a former friend of Gaetz, who is currently serving an 11-year prison sentence after striking a deal with investigators in May 2021 in which he pleaded guilty to several federal crimes, including sex traffic with the woman when she was a minor and introduced her to other “adult men” who also had sex with her when she was a minor.

According to Greenberg’s plea agreement, the woman, whom ABC News is not identifying, met Greenberg online in 2017 and began meeting him at hotels and houses in Florida’s Middle District, where he “introduced the minor to other adult males who engaged in commercial sex acts with the minor in Florida’s Middle District,” court documents state.

At the time, the minor “declared that she was an adult” on the website where she met Greenberg — and, according to his plea, he acknowledges that he “acted in reckless disregard of the fact that the minor was under 18 years of age when he engaged in commercial sexual acts” and had “reasonable opportunity to observe” that she was a minor.

During its investigation, the House Ethics Committee conducted interviews with at least half a dozen women who allegedly attended parties attended by the Florida congressman and paid for by Greenberg, Gaetz’s former close friend, sources told ABC News . Some of the witnesses had been subpoenaed by the committee, while others agreed to cooperate, according to the sources.

The House Ethics Committee also subpoenaed Gaetz’s ex-girlfriend to testify and said she sat for an interview earlier this year, sources said. The ex-boyfriend previously testified before a grand jury in the sex-trafficking investigation, as ABC News previously reported.

The committee also obtained a sworn written statement from Gaetz’s ex-girlfriend, in which she names the Florida congressman as one of the attendees at a July 2017 drug-fueled party attended by the woman with whom Gaetz allegedly had sex with when she was a minor, sources said.

ABC News previously reported that the committee obtained written testimony from a separate woman who said that in July 2017, when she was 20 years old, she attended a party in Florida that Gaetz also attended and that was attended by the woman who was a minor. at the time and where there were drugs, including cocaine.

Greenberg, a key witness in the Justice Department investigation, has been cooperating with the House Ethics investigation, according to sources. Earlier this year, while serving time in a federal prison in Florida, he provided written testimony to the committee, the sources said.

Some witnesses were shown Venmo payments they allegedly received from Gaetz, sources said.

As ABC News previously reported, a woman who said she attended a party with Gaetz in 2017, whom ABC News is not identifying, told the committee that a payment from Gaetz was for sex, multiple sources told ABC News. Others have said they were paid to attend parties they said Gaetz also attended, and that those parties included drugs and sex, the sources said.

Gaetz has long denied all of the allegations, including payment for sex, previously dismissing them by claiming that “someone is trying to recategorize my generosity to ex-girlfriends as something more inappropriate.”

Earlier this year, the committee subpoenaed the Justice Department for records related to its investigation of the Florida congressman, sources said. It is unclear whether these records were transferred.

However, the committee had obtained some Venmo records from Gaetz after issuing a subpoena to the company, sources told ABC News. During the Justice Department’s investigation into Gaetz, public reporting, including by The Daily Beast, focused largely on Venmo records by Greenberg, who, according to his plea agreement, used his account to “pay for commercial sexual acts” with women he also introduced to others .