The Florida Bar has decided not to consider disciplinary action in the case of former U.S. Rep. and attorney Matt Gaetz, who in 2024 was accused by the House Ethics Committee of paying for sexual activity and having sex with a 17-year-old.
The position of the Florida Bar’s Grievance Committee was laid out in a file of documents that were first reported by the Florida Bulldog. In a letter to Gaetz dated Aug. 15 of last year, Grievance Committee Chair Casey Pless Waterhouse said the panel’s decision finding no probable cause for an investigation was not based on inaccuracies in the congressional report.
Instead, the rules of professional misconduct draw “a distinction between offenses of personal morality or alleged crimes which do not have a connection to fitness for the practice of law or otherwise indicate characteristics relevant to law practice. …”
The December 2024 Ethics Committee report alleged that Rep. Gaetz regularly paid women for sex from at least 2017 to 2020; possessed or used illicit drugs such as cocaine and ecstasy on multiple occasions; accepted gifts whose value exceeded permitted amounts; and sought to obstruct the committee’s probe of his conduct.
Despite the finding of the Grievance Committee that the Gaetz complaint should be dismissed, Waterhouse’s letter urged the former Republican congressman to “reflect on his responsibilities as an officer of the court.”
“The actions described in the House Committee on Ethics Report appear to undermine the rule of law, standards of professionalism and the dignity of the profession for which you are a member,” the letter says. “Such actions are inconsistent with the responsibilities of members of the Florida Bar. As an attorney in this state, you are held to a higher standard, including the expectation to uphold both the legal profession’s honor and public trust.”
The bipartisan House panel did consider moving forward with sanctions against Gaetz but ultimately declined to do so, citing potential further victimization of the women involved in the allegations. Gaetz has denied the charges and said publicly that the 17-year-old girl, listed as “Victim A” in the report, does not exist.
Legal ethics experts have disagreed about the Florida Bar’s decision, but Robert Jarvis, a law professor at Nova Southeastern University, said the use of the “moral turpitude” standard to discipline lawyers has fallen out of favor in Florida in recent years.
“… The Grievance Committee appears to have reached the correct conclusion that Gaetz’s behavior, although contemptible, did not demonstrate that he could not properly perform his duties as a lawyer,” Jarvis told the Florida Record in an email.
He characterized the Gaetz case as likely a difficult one for the Florida Bar panel.
“… The committee likely would have come to the opposite conclusion if Gaetz had committed these acts as a lawyer rather than as a legislator,” Jarvis said.
In addition, going after attorneys who commit acts that have no bearing on their fitness to represent clients tends to take time away from investigating lawyers who do pose threats to clients, such as those who siphon off funds from client trust accounts, he said.
Jarvis also put the Gaetz case in a similar category as the recent attempt by certain attorneys to urge the Florida Bar to investigate the conduct of U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, who is a member of the Florida Bar.
“There is a real danger in trying to use the lawyer disciplinary system for things it was not designed for,” he said, “and I think both the Bondi and Gaetz cases are examples of the bar and the (Supreme) Court trying to keep the system focused on lawyers who have shown that they are a danger to clients.”
