| A harrowing new report reveals that Mike Beltran directly filed a defamation lawsuit against a young woman who had been sex trafficked as a teen.
As recently as 2023, Beltran represented former Republican lawmaker, Chris Dorworth, who has been accused as Matt Gaetz’s accomplice in a ring of alleged sex trafficking crimes involving young women, drugs, and traveling across state lines.
According to the findings, “Dorworth’s home was the site of a July 2017 party during which Gaetz twice had sex with a 17-year-old who had just completed her junior year of high school and was paid by Gaetz for the encounter… the same victim Dorworth went on to sue in 2023 with Beltran’s help.”
Court records show Beltran’s involvement was extensive: he filed more than two dozen motions, responses, and notices in this case against the victim.
DCCC Spokesperson Anna Elsasser:
“Mike Beltran wants Floridians to trust him with a seat in Congress, but he actively defended an alleged sex criminal who endangered underage girls. Mike Beltran must answer immediately for his deeply troubling – and disqualifying – role in this case.”
Read more:
The 19th: A GOP House candidate did legal work for man accused in sex trafficking scandal
- Court records show that in 2023, Beltran filed a defamation lawsuit on behalf of Chris Dorworth, a former Republican state legislator and lobbyist, claiming that the woman had falsely testified against Dorworth and defamed him in statements to federal law enforcement officials.
- The woman in Beltran and Dorworth’s lawsuit, which was dropped in 2024, is the same person whom a bipartisan House Ethics Committee probe found Gaetz had sex with as a minor in 2017 at Dorworth’s home.
- Beltran’s connection to Dorworth and to the allegations facing Gaetz and his associates is notable amid an election cycle that has seen both parties scrutinize candidates’ records on sex crime cases and links to sex offenders.
- Democrats in particular have focused much of their attention this cycle on voters frustrated about what they perceive as a government rife with corruption and injustice, from the pervasive nature of abuse against women to the government’s handling of accusations against the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
- According to the panel’s report, Dorworth’s home was the site of a July 2017 party during which Gaetz twice had sex with a 17-year-old who had just completed her junior year of high school and was paid by Gaetz for the encounter…She’s also the same victim Dorworth went on to sue in 2023 with Beltran’s help.
- Beltran filed more than two dozen motions, responses and notices as part of the case, according to court records.
|
