A recently unsealed court document reveals new information about the young woman who testified she was paid to have sex with former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Florida, as a minor. President-elect Donald Trump nominated Gaetz for attorney general, but he withdrew amid widespread opposition in the Senate.
In 2017, the young woman was "a then-homeless 17-year-old high schooler" states the now-unredacted court document, one of dozens in a Central Florida civil court case.
This and other court documents show the teen joined a "sugar dating" website that paired young women with men for money, where she met Joel Greenberg, the tax collector for Seminole County, Florida. Through Greenberg, she met a circle of his friends active in state politics. They included Chris Dorworth, a Republican former member of the Florida House who was a lobbyist with an influential firm based in Tallahassee, and Gaetz, a Republican congressman from northern Florida.
The young woman, identified in court records as A.B., testified that through those connections she had sexual encounters with Gaetz before she turned 18.
Using the information in the recently released document, The New York Times talked with the young woman's current attorney, Laura Wolf, and confirmed that when the encounters began the teenager was a high school student working at McDonalds, living in and out of shelters with one of her parents who was homeless. The Times reported she falsely advertised herself as 18 on the dating website, hoping to save money to have braces placed on her teeth.
