Ex-florida Gop Chair Ziegler Won’t Face Criminal Charges

TALLAHASSEE, Florida — The state attorney’s office in Sarasota will not to pursue criminal charges against the former chair of the Republican Party of Florida.

Authorities were investigating the former chair, Christian Ziegler, for allegedly illegally videotaping a woman who accused him of rape, and prosecutor Ed Brodsky determined there wasn’t enough evidence to charge him, according to a memo from the state attorney. Police had already decided against recommending Ziegler face sexual assault charges.

The investigation exploded into public view amid numerous leaks that trickled out over months, revealing salacious details about the sex lives of Ziegler and his wife, Moms for Liberty co-founder Bridget Ziegler.

The power couple, who had publicly espoused traditional family values, admitted to police that Ziegler regularly had sex outside their marriage and that they’d had a consensual threesome a year earlier with the woman who'd leveled the complaint. Ziegler refused to step down despite calls for him to resign, so the party pushed him out during a meeting in Tallahassee in January.

Ziegler’s attorney, Derek Byrd, said his client was “relieved to finally be completely cleared of the false allegations and any criminal wrongdoing.” Throughout the investigation, Ziegler maintained he was innocent.

“We cooperated at every stage of investigation and as difficult as it was, we remained quiet out of respect for the investigation,” Byrd said. “ On day one, we said that Mr. Ziegler was completely innocent. We asked everyone not to rush to judgment and reminded everyone to presume Mr. Ziegler innocent — as the Constitution instructs. Unfortunately, many did not award that courtesy to Mr. Ziegler, damaging his family, career, and reputation throughout this process.”

Ziegler initially was under investigation for rape as part of the Oct. 2 encounter but police determined in January that there was insufficient evidence to charge him because “the video showed that the encounter was likely consensual.” They asked the state attorney to consider charging Ziegler with video voyeurism.

The alleged victim had told police she couldn’t remember any video being taken and didn’t recall being asked to be recorded. Prosecutors didn’t find evidence that a third party viewed the video or that it was secretly broadcast anywhere, according to the memo issued Wednesday and signed by three assistants in the state attorney’s office.

“However, the victim acknowledged it was possible she could have consented to one being taken,” the memo stated, and she acknowledged the two had discussed taping a different sexual encounter even though they ultimately didn’t do it. The phone also wasn’t in a hidden location while it was recording.

Ziegler told police that the woman asked him over Instagram messages whether he’d shown the video to his wife. Police weren’t able to recover those messages, which were in “vanish” mode on the social media app, meaning they disappear and are hard to recover.

The woman also told authorities she had been intoxicated during the alleged rape and wasn’t in a mindset to consent.

“Inconsistencies in the victim’s account appear to be the result of substantial intoxication and trauma that the victim was experiencing,” prosecutors concluded. Police went to check on the woman after a friend of hers asked them to.

Gov. Ron DeSantis, U.S. Sens. Rick Scott and Marco Rubio, and U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz had called on Ziegler to step down from his party post. The new chair, Evan Power, said the group wouldn’t be commenting on the state attorney’s decision.

Bridget Ziegler continues to face scrutiny in her public roles. She stepped back from Moms for Liberty in 2021 but has refused to relinquish her position as board member on the Sarasota School Board despite calls from fellow board members to step down.

She also is still a board member of the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District, the DeSantis-appointed governing body for the area surrounding Walt Disney World. DeSantis and the GOP-supermajority Legislature overhauled the area after the entertainment giant objected to a law restricting classroom discussions of LGBTQ+ topics in public schools, one critics have called “Don’t Say Gay.”

Ziegler declined to comment other than to send his attorney’s statement, though he’d previously said he’d open up more about the motives of the accusation when the investigation was done.

As part of the investigation, prosecutors determined there wasn’t any evidence that the woman had “any financial, political or malicious personal motivation” for making the report.

Byrd said Ziegler would be moving on with his life and was “not interested in suing [his] accuser for the false allegations.”