Matt Gaetz's friend asks court to destroy records of sex party

A little scoop hidden in court filings... Gaetz gets attorney general nod despite sex trafficked skeletons in the closet... More files for the GOP crime syndicate...

If Matt Gaetz is approved as attorney general — and that may not be as big an if as people think — he’ll have influence over judges in federal courthouses throughout the country. Two of them will be in a courthouse in Orlando, home to the U.S. District Court, Middle District of Florida.

These two judges — Daniel Irick and Carlos Mendoza — are currently presiding over the final stages of a lawsuit that involves two of Gaetz’s friends. The two men are at odds over allegations of a drug-fueled party in 2017 that involved at least one underage sex worker that one of the men admits to having sex with. The girl, now a woman, was a victim of human trafficking. She and an ex-girlfriend of Gaetz claim he was at the party, one piece to a perverted puzzle of allegations that have dogged the Republican congressman for years — that he’s into young women, often paying them for sex. 

The Justice Department investigated these claims but declined to charge Gaetz last year. Meanwhile, the lawsuit between Gaetz’s two friends — Christopher Dorworth and Joel Greenberg — has been playing out in the Orlando courthouse. There’s a lot to unpack in this sordid scandal but to get to the point here: In October, Dorworth asked the judges in the case to withhold releasing records that could shed light on exactly what happened at the 2017 party and who all was there, including Gaetz. Actually, Dorworth is asking the judges to destroy the records altogether, which is the subject of my story this morning at Rolling Stone.

Dorworth says the records “should not only be sealed but be stricken from the record entirely.”

I found Dorworth’s demand buried in a slew of motions that have been made since the last development in this case, which was reported by Jose Pagliery at NOTUS, who has been doggedly following this story for years. Back then, in September, other unsealed documents in the case finally placed Gaetz at the party. Now, Dorworth is demanding that none of the other “confidential” exhibits in the case — which include witness depositions and affidavits — be released.

One of the judges has already signaled he doesn't buy Dorworth’s argument that these records could affect another lawsuit he has rolling in state court.

“This is a case of public importance,” Irick said in August, according to Pagliery at NOTUS. “It is one that there may be media interest in, and it’s one that involves important issues … I’m not seeing any confidentialities that would really overwhelm the First Amendment right for the public to see this case, especially when a plaintiff brings claims in relation to their marriage and spouses and the kind of intimate issues in this case which are laid out in extreme detail in the … complaint. I am unlikely to seal anything because it all seems relevant.”

Below is the timeline of how all of this has gone down, and what may happen next.

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