Fla. Police Drop Sexual Battery Charge On Former GOP Chair
by Mitch Perry, Florida Phoenix
January 19, 2024
The Sarasota Police Department announced Friday that it had dropped its investigation into allegations that former Republican Party of Florida Chairman Christian Ziegler had committed sexual battery.
However, the department said in a news release that it has prepared a probable cause affidavit for the crime of federal “video voyeurism” to the State Attorney’s Office for further review.
The announcement comes less than two weeks after the Republican Party of Florida voted to remove Ziegler from his position as party chair and later selected Evan Power to succeed Ziegler.
The investigation involved allegations that Ziegler had sexually assaulted a woman previously involved in a three-way relationship with himself and his wife, Bridget Ziegler, a Moms for Liberty co-founder and Sarasota County School Board member, according to a search warrant affidavit.
“During the investigation, the detectives conducted nearly one dozen interviews, issued numerous subpoenas, reviewed hours of surveillance footage, and searched through a substantial number of images and videos on cell phones and their respective cloud data backups,” according to a news release Friday from the Sarasota Police Department.