The criminal investigation into Republican Party of Florida chairperson Christian Ziegler that began with a woman accusing him of rape has led police to also look into whether he committed video voyeurism when he filmed the sexual encounter, according to a search warrant affidavit.

The affidavit approved by a judge on Dec. 8 sought access to Ziegler’s Instagram account, where Sarasota police detectives said they believed there was evidence of the crime. In examining Ziegler’s cellphone previously, police found he sent the alleged victim messages on Oct. 2, the day of the incident, directing her to go to Instagram. The woman told police that Ziegler prefers to communicate on Instagram because he can use “vanish mode,” according to the affidavit.

Police also wrote that, during an interview with Ziegler, his attorney Derek Byrd said there was a message on Instagram between Ziegler and the woman where she asked him if he showed the video of the sexual encounter to his wife, Bridget Ziegler.

When detectives interviewed the woman, whose identity has been redacted in police records, she told them she did not consent for Christian Ziegler to take a video of them having sex. Neither she nor Bridget Ziegler “knew anything about this video … and neither had seen the video,” police wrote.

Video voyeurism is a third-degree felony defined in Florida law as taking video without the consent of someone “who is dressing, undressing, or privately exposing the body, at a place and time when that person has a reasonable expectation of privacy” for the purposes of “amusement, entertainment, sexual arousal, gratification, or profit, or for the purpose of degrading or abusing another person.”

Christian Ziegler told police the sex was consensual, according to the affidavit, and showed them the video, which is 2 1/2 minutes long.

In search warrant affidavits, police have said the woman reported that she had originally agreed to have sex with both Ziegler and his wife that day in October, but canceled when Bridget Ziegler could not attend. Christian Ziegler then came to her apartment anyway, according to police. The woman made a report of sexual assault two days later and had a rape kit completed at a hospital, police said.

Byrd has said his client will be exonerated. No criminal charges have been filed in the case, which was publicly revealed in November.

The investigation has attracted national attention in part because of Ziegler’s role as well as that of his wife, a prominent conservative activist who co-founded the Moms for Liberty education group and sits on the Sarasota County School Board. Bridget Ziegler has confirmed to detectives that she and her husband had previously had a threesome with the woman, according to police records.

The Zieglers have advocated against things like LGBTQ+ school lessons, prompting widespread accusations of a hypocritical divide between their public personas and private behavior.

Since the investigation became public, Florida Republicans have moved quickly toward ousting Christian Ziegler, fearing the scandal would distract from their party’s ability to be ready for 2024. At a closed-door December meeting in Orlando, they stripped Ziegler of his authority, called on him to resign and reduced his salary to $1.

On Jan. 8, party members will meet again, this time in Tallahassee, to vote on removing Ziegler as chairperson and electing his replacement.

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