New Report Reveals a Florida GOP Power Couple’s Possibly Criminal Threesome Sex Tape Scheme

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The following contains descriptions of sexual assault.

A newly-public police report about cell phone data from former Florida Republican Party chairman Christian Ziegler indicates that he secretly photographed and surveilled women in bars with the cooperation of his wife, Moms for Liberty co-founder and Sarasota County school board member Bridget Ziegler.

The report, authored by Sarasota Police Det. Angela Cox and obtained by the Florida Trident this week, sets forth how Christian Ziegler frequently photographed women without their knowledge or consent at bars, in order to send them to Bridget for her approval for prospective threesomes.

“During these conversations Christian is secretly taking photographs of women in the bars and sending them to Bridget asking her if she wants this one or that one,” Cox wrote in the report. “Bridget is telling him to pretend to take pictures of his beer, so they don’t see him taking pictures of them. She tells him ‘Don’t come home until your dick is wet.’” Police also reportedly found “numerous” videos on Christian’s phone of he and his wife having sex with women, and were unable to determine whether the other women in the videos knew they were being recorded.

The information was discovered as part of two separate criminal investigations that were launched after an anonymous woman accused Christian Ziegler of sexually assaulting her on October 2, 2023, when Bridget was unavailable for a planned threesome. The woman told police that she was too drunk to legally consent at the time, and that Christian had repeatedly sexually battered her in the past, but “she never felt like she could say no to him,” according to Cox’s report. The alleged victim later said she was also unaware that Christian had filmed the alleged rape. Investigators were reportedly unable to determine whether the act depicted was consensual, but asked the State Attorney’s office to investigate felony video voyeurism charges, which were ultimately not pursued due to lack of evidence.

Since then, the Zieglers have filed a lawsuit to prevent all data discovered during the investigations from being released, arguing that they are not public records and so should not be subject to Florida’s sunshine law. The Trident released the information about Christian Ziegler’s bar surveillance during a final hearing in that case on Thursday, much of which was spent in arguments about whether the police investigations constituted a Fourth Amendment violation, according to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. (The Trident’s parent organization, the Florida Center for Government Accountability, was a party in contesting the Zieglers’ lawsuit.) Judge Hunter Carroll did not issue a ruling on Thursday, but is expected to do so in the next several weeks.

Although the scandal hinges on allegations of sexual assault and serial voyeurism, much of the public conversation has focused on the Zieglers’ sociopolitical hypocrisy. Both have campaigned against LGBTQ+ rights and accused transgender people of being “groomers” and sexual predators, while privately seeking out sex that is neither heterosexual nor monogamous. Moms for Liberty has advocated for LGBTQ+ book bans in schools and public libraries, harassed teachers, and attempted to have at least one trans woman fired from her job as a school tennis coach. In addition to his single year as Florida GOP chair, Christian Ziegler was also an attendee of Donald Trump’s “Save America” rally that directly preceded the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The pair have been closely tied to Gov. Ron DeSantis, who personally endorsed Bridget Ziegler in her school board campaign, and his “anti-woke” campaign against LGBTQ+ rights and racial justice in Florida, such as the infamous “Don’t Say Gay” law, which Bridget Ziegler backed.

During a Sarasota County school board meeting earlier this month, Bridget Ziegler introduced a last-minute resolution to align the district with DeSantis in ignoring new federal Title IX rules that prohibit discrimination based on gender identity. The resolution affirms that “no policy or procedural changes will be implemented or considered” in compliance with the new federal rules while DeSantis’ legal challenge is ongoing. The resolution passed by a 4-1 vote despite lengthy protests from members of the public, according to NPR member station WUSF, with some saying Ziegler’s “culture war” could place the district in legal jeopardy and cost schools at least $50 million in funding.

Tom Edwards, the only gay member of the Sarasota board, was the only dissenting vote at the May 7 meeting. Another board member with Moms for Liberty ties, Melissa Bakondy, called Edwards an “LGBTQ groomer” and insinuated he was a sexual predator during a board meeting last year.

“Why would we pass a resolution to not be in compliance with Title IX?” Edwards said prior to the vote on Ziegler’s resolution, according to WUSF. “It just doesn't make sense why we have to put ourselves and the school district in that jeopardy.”

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