Name: Matt Gaetz investigators probing medical marijuana connections for possible corruption: report
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Matt Gaetz investigators probing medical marijuana connections for possible corruption: report

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The federal investigation of U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz is now examining whether he accepted gifts, like travel and paid escorts, in exchange for political favors to benefit figures in the medical marijuana industry, the latest known expansion of the sprawling probe. The newly revealed facet of the Gaetz probe, being conducted by the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, is also exploring whether a 2018 trip to the Bahamas by Gaetz and his associates with several young women was part of an effort to illegally influence Gaetz, the report said. Advertisement Also on that trip was Jason Pirozzolo, an Orlando doctor and Gaetz friend who emerged as a major GOP fundraiser and entrepreneur after getting in on the ground floor of Florida’s medical marijuana industry. Citing unnamed sources, CNN said the probe of Gaetz now includes “whether Gaetz took gifts, including travel and paid escorts, in exchange for political favors.” Gaetz has consistently denied any wrongdoing and has said he has never paid for sex. Advertisement The rise of Matt Gaetz ally and Orlando hand doctor Jason Pirozzolo from secondary political player to successful entrepreneur and major GOP fundraiser was fueled by connections to powerful Republican friends and the ascendant medical marijuana industry. Pirozzolo, who has twice served on the board of the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority, which oversees Orlando International Airport, built up political connections and influence over a decade of regular appearances in the state capital. As a pilot, Pirozzolo was able to fly frequently to Tallahassee to be “doctor of the day,” volunteering as a physician for legislators and legislative employees during session. Pirozzolo has been “doctor of the day” at least 30 times since 2011, including at least 27 times in the state House alone. He was serving in that capacity on May 1, 2014, when the House took up medical marijuana legislation sponsored by then-state Rep. Matt Gaetz, whose ally, then-Rep. Jason Brodeur, introduced an amendment requiring any company that wanted to grow and sell marijuana in Florida to also hire a physician as medical director. The requirement was Pirozzolo’s idea, a person familiar with the discussions told the Orlando Sentinel last week. On May 9, just days after the Legislature passed the “Compassionate Medical Cannabis Act of 2014,” Pirozzolo started a new consulting business, Florida Health Privilege, which offered to connect cannabis companies with medical directors. The company contracted with Winter Garden-based Knox Nursery, which won one of the state’s first five marijuana licenses. Pirozzolo was at some point also given a stake in Knox’s new medical marijuana business. While serving in the Florida Legislature, U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz opposed a bill meant to stop people from sharing sexually explicit images of their ex-lovers because Gaetz believed that recipients of those images had a right to share them, according to the sponsor of the legislation. In 2016, after Gaetz-backed legislation expanded medical marijuana access, Pirozzolo started the American Medical Marijuana Physicians Association, which offers education programs for doctors and organizes industry events that regularly drew prominent Florida political figures, including Gaetz. Gaetz has long been an advocate for medical marijuana, both in his time in state politics and as a member of Congress. Legislation he has sponsored in Washington mirrored or closely aligned with AMMPA’s agenda and Pirozzolo’s public comments, CNN reported. On the day in January 2019 that Gov. Ron DeSantis had issued a directive to end a ban on smokeable marijuana, Gaetz appeared in a celebratory video with John Morgan, the patriarch of the Morgan &amp; Morgan mega-law firm and prominent advocate for medical marijuana. “Matt Gaetz is the father of marijuana in Florida,” Morgan said, cigar in hand, citing Gaetz’s support years earlier for legalizing the strain of marijuana known as “Charlotte’s Web.” The video was recorded at the Heathrow home of developer and ex-lawmaker Chris Dorworth. Chris Dorworth and his allies have used several behind-the-scenes tactics in the three-year-long quest to build the controversial River Cross, which could add up to 1,388 new housing units on the eastern side of the Econlockhatchee River, in a part of Seminole County that has long been strictly off limits to intense development. Dorworth, a friend of both Gaetz and Joel Greenberg, the disgraced former Seminole County tax collector, was also named in the new CNN report, which said he had attended parties with Gaetz that are being scrutinized by federal investigators. Dorworth didn’t respond to CNN’s requests for comment. Reports have said that those parties, held in the Orlando area, involved sex, drugs and young women. Greenberg, who faces a slew of federal charges including child sex trafficking, has been providing investigators with information about the parties and paid sex involving Gaetz, CNN reports. It had already been widely reported that the Gaetz probe is exploring whether he and Greenberg recruited women online and paid for sex and travel with women — as well as a 17-year-old girl. The New York Times has also reported investigators had learned of a conversation in which Dorworth and Gaetz discussed putting up a third-party candidate to help their friend, Jason Brodeur, win a state Senate seat. As the involvement of so-called “ghost” candidates has sparked scandal in several of last year’s elections in Florida, a similar figure’s role in the race for Seminole County tax collector has attracted less scrutiny — even after the incumbent Joel Greenberg became a pariah at the center of a sprawling federal investigation. That race, in District 9, wound up including a non-party affiliated candidate, Jestine Iannotti, who did no campaigning but was backed by mailers tied to a dark-money group also involved in other Senate races that included possible “ghost” candidates. Doroworth at the Tallahassee lobbying firm Ballard Partners amid the controversy, saying he did not want to be a distraction to the firm. He has not been accused of any crimes and denied any involvement with Iannotti. Greenberg is currently negotiating a plea agreement with federal prosecutors, with a court-ordered deadline of May 15 to strike a deal. It’s unclear if he has offered or agreed to testify against anyone else. According to the CNN report, one person who has been summoned to testify before a grand jury is Megan Zalonka, who worked simultaneously for Pirozzolo, through AMMPA, and Greenberg, who hired her for “consulting services” and paid her with a Tax Collector’s Office Visa in 2018 and 2019. The report also indicated that Gaetz had taken Zalonka as a date to multiple Florida political functions since 2019 The Sentinel previously reported that a man who answered the door at a Central Florida address linked to Zalonka said she didn’t live there but showed a reporter a grand jury subpoena for her he said he’d received, which called for her to testify last August. jeweiner@orlandosentinel.com Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement

The federal investigation of U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz is now examining whether he accepted gifts, like travel and paid escorts, in exchange for political favors to benefit figures in the medical marijuana industry, the latest known expansion of the sprawling probe. The newly revealed facet of the Gaetz probe, being conducted by the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, is also exploring whether a 2018 trip to the Bahamas by Gaetz and his associates with several young women was part of an effort to illegally influence Gaetz, the report said. Advertisement Also on that trip was Jason...

Matt Gaetz investigators probing medical marijuana connections for possible corruption: report

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