SARASOTA, FL—Following a now-shuttered sex scandal, the recently deposed GOP Chairman Christian Ziegler and his wife, Moms for Liberty co-founder Bridget Ziegler, have filed a lawsuit to keep text messages they exchanged during the Republican leader's rape investigation out of the public's hands.
On March 15, the formerly powerful Zieglers sued the City of Sarasota and the State Attorney's Office to prevent phone records during Christian Ziegler's rape investigation from being released to the media, claiming their messages were intended to be private, the Florida Trident reported.
According to the lawsuit, the Zieglers “are concerned that other individuals and media outlets will most likely make, or have already made” requests for their phone records if made public.
Because of this, they asked the court to order the “permanent destruction of all subject text messages” police obtained during the investigation.
The swift downfall of the Zieglers began in October when a woman who had previously engaged in consensual threesomes with the couple accused the GOP Chair of raping her at her apartment.
Ziegler admitted he had had sex with the woman, but insisted it was consensual, proving this by showing a video of the encounter. The video opened him up to allegations of video voyeurism, though the State Attorney and Sarasota Police Department decided no charges would be filed for the alleged rape or voyeurism.
Even though no charges were ultimately brought, the Zieglers experienced a nearly instantaneous fall from grace. The expedited removal of Christian as Florida GOP Chair ensued, and soon after Bridget as Vice President of School Board Programs, though she still holds her seat on the school board despite calls for her resignation.
