Christian Ziegler Won’t Face Any Charges In GOP Sex Scandal: State

SARASOTA, FL — State Attorney Ed Brodsky has decided not to charge former state Republican party chairman Christian Ziegler with video voyeurism, according to a news release from his office.

Investigators determined there was “insufficient evidence to prove the crime.”

The Sarasota Police Department suggested the charge against the disgraced Republican Party of Florida leader in January. The agency prepared a probable cause affidavit for the video voyeurism charge, a felony, against Ziegler, and forwarded the case to Brodsky’s office.

Detectives began investigating sexual battery and rape allegations against Ziegler on Oct. 4 following an Oct. 2 incident.

Ziegler denied the accusations and claimed he had consensual sex with his accuser, a woman he and his wife, Moms for Liberty co-founder and Sarasota County School Board member Bridget Ziegler, previously had a three-way sexual encounter with a little over a year ago.

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Video evidence on Christian Ziegler’s phone showed the encounter between him and the victim “was likely consensual,” police said.

The victim told police she was unaware that she was being recorded and didn’t consent to the recording, leading to the suggested video voyeurism charge, the agency said.

During an interview with the state attorney’s office, the victim said that she didn’t recall consenting to the video, but said it was possible she could have consented.

She said in the interview that there was at least one other time she and Ziegler discussed recording a sexual encounter, though he chose not to do so at that time, Brodsky’s office said.

Ziegler told police in a Nov. 2 interview that he and the victim previously talked about recording a video of a sexual encounter between them for his wife to watch, the state attorney said.

After the Oct. 2 incident, he said the victim asked him on Instagram if he had shown his wife the video from that day, the news release said.

The messages between them were sent using Instagram’s “Vanish” feature, which automatically deletes them once viewed by the other person. Investigators haven’t been able to recover these messages.

He also told police Dec. 1 that he asked the victim before recording their encounter Oct. 2 and she agreed to it, the state attorney’s office said.

While the video doesn’t capture any statements from the victim indicating she knew of and consented to the recording, it shows that the phone was visible in Ziegler’s hand or on the bed where the encounter took place, Brodsky’s office said. Ziegler also picked up the phone to end the recording while standing a few feet from the victim, who was laying on the bed.

“The video did not appear to be taken from any hidden device or secretive angle that would tend to show that a phone recording a video was being hidden from the victim,” his office said.

The victim was drinking for hours leading up to the incident “and was unable to recall many details surrounding the sexual encounter,” according to Brodsky’s office. “In attempting to recall certain details, inconsistencies arose regarding those details. For example, the Victim recalled the sexual encounter taking place over a barstool at the island in the kitchen near the front door of the residence. However, video of the sexual encounter shows it took place in a bedroom.”

These inconsistencies and her “inability to recall whether she consented to recording the sexual activity … leave the state unable to demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that the video in question was filmed without her knowledge or consent,” the state attorney said.