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The case of the Zieglers, the Florida GOP traditional values power couple, caught up in a case of three-ways and alleged rape took several turns for the weird and the worse over the weekend. (David provided an update in this morning’s Morning Memo.) The story has a complicated, uncanny dynamic because, on the one hand, it’s that old as the hills story of a family values Republican caught up in sexual practices which, if harmless themselves for consenting adults, don’t at all square with their public personas or policy agenda. On the other, buried in that schadenfreude-y story of Republicans with their pants down is a very credible accusation of rape.
Let’s try to give each part of the story its due.
The Zieglers are a Florida GOP power couple. Christian is the head of the state Republican party. Bridget is a member of the Sarasota County School Board and the cofounder of Moms for Liberty, the far right “parental choice” group working to keep schools free of trans rights, gay rights and any other imagined woke indoctrination. Bridget Ziegler became such a phenom in Florida MAGA circles that Ron DeSantis appointed her to the board charged with lording over Disney.
As first reported, the Zieglers were in a three-year consensual three way sexual relationship with an unnamed woman. That woman filed a police report on October 4th claiming that Christian Ziegler had raped her. Two days earlier the three had agreed to meet for another encounter, but Bridget Ziegler couldn’t make it. The accuser canceled after finding out Bridget wouldn’t be there. “I was mainly in it for her,” she reportedly told Christian Ziegler. But Christian showed up anyway.
The woman has accused Christian of entering the home and raping her. According to the accuser’s account, she had no ability to consent since she had been home drinking all day.
A search warrant affidavit first reported by the Orlando Sentinel adds new details to the story. First, it’s less clear that this was an on-going sexual relationship. In an interview with police on November 1st, Bridget Ziegler insisted she had only had sex with her husband and the accuser one time about a year ago. The accuser confirmed that assignation a year ago. So it’s unclear whether the initial claim of an on-going relationship was incorrect.
The accuser told police she was unable to consent to sex because she had been drinking, as it was her day off work. According to the affidavit, the accuser told Christian Ziegler “she was not in a place to consent” because “she had been drinking tequila all day.”
Adding weight to the accuser’s claims, she contacted her sister and told her she was raped and went to the hospital to have evidence taken for a rape kit two days later on October 4th. The sister told police that the accuser had seemed “very emotional and distraught” in the call. A coworker called 911 on October 4th to request a wellness check on the accuser after she hadn’t been to work in two days and told the coworker she was afraid to leave her house after being raped.
Christian Ziegler meanwhile offered as a defense that he had actually videotaped what he claimed was consensual sex. He recorded it but then, he claimed, deleted it before uploading it to his Google Drive. (Yes, deleting and then uploading seems chronologically a bit odd but presumably he is claiming he deleted the video and then retrieved it from trash.) Police were seeking access to Ziegler’s Google Drive account in their warrant application.
(This must be one of the first times a Republican politician has claimed recording himself having sex as a form of exoneration.)
After the alleged rape, and with police listening in, the accuser had text and phone conversations with Christian Ziegler, apparently in the hopes of soliciting an admission. Ziegler’s responses were ambiguous. He adamantly denied he had raped the accuser but did ask how he could help, including possible financial help. The accuser cut off contact when Ziegler asked if she was recording him.
One reference that hints at a more longstanding relationship either with Ziegler or both Zieglers: the accuser demanded that Christian Ziegler acknowledge “that he has been using her all these years.”
Needless to say, these are suboptimal developments for both Zieglers’ political careers. Christian Ziegler insists he will be totally exonerated and says Bridget Ziegler is “behind me 150 percent.” Ziegler insists malicious forces are behind the allegations and promises he’ll have “a lot more to share about the facts, how this transpired, the motive and who was behind it.”
But even if Christian Ziegler avoids legal consequences, he and his wife’s political careers are in some jeopardy. Though he downplays it in his public statements, Christian Ziegler has admitted to having sex at least twice with the accuser. Bridget Ziegler meanwhile, who built her career in significant measure on demonizing gay people, admitted to police that she had sex with the female accuser at least once. Just in the nature of things, it seems unlikely that either Ziegler was a down-the-line sexual traditionalist with the exception of these two assignations.
The whole saga may also shed some light on Ron DeSantis’s rapidly diminishing power in Florida. There have been many stories through the fall that DeSantis’s pull in Florida has declined precipitously as his presidential campaign has cratered. This may be another example. Just after his debate with Gavin Newsom on Thursday, DeSantis told reporters that Ziegler should step down from his position leading the state party. “The mission is more important.”
But Ziegler disregarded DeSantis’s demand. He insisted in a Saturday email to state Republicans that his mission to save America is too important to allow any thought of resignation. “We have a country to save and I am not going to let false allegations of a crime put that mission on the bench as I wait for this process to wrap up.”