CBS News
Woman told House Ethics Committee she saw Gaetz having sex with a minor
A woman who attended a 2017 party with former Rep. Matt Gaetz told the House Ethics Committee she witnessed the then-recently elected congressman having sex with a minor, according to her attorney.
The woman’s attorney, Joel Leppard, released a statement on Friday, calling on the committee to release the findings of its yearslong review of Gaetz. The committee planned to vote Friday on whether to release their report, but the meeting was canceled after President-elect Donald Trump announced he intended to nominate Gaetz as attorney general and the Florida Republican resigned from Congress.
“As the Senate considers former Rep. Gaetz’s nomination for Attorney General, several questions demand answers,” Leppard said in a statement. “What if sworn testimony detailed conduct that would disqualify anyone from serving as our nation’s chief law enforcement officer?”
Leppard’s client is one of at least four women who have told the committee they were paid to attend parties with drugs and sex where Gaetz was present, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter. Her account corroborates the testimony of the then-minor, who told the committee that she had sex with Gaetz when she was 17 years old.
“She was a high school student, and there were witnesses,” her attorney, John Clune, said in a statement on Thursday. He also urged the committee to release its report on Gaetz.
CBS News has learned the committee also has Gaetz’s Venmo transactions that allegedly show payments for the women.
Gaetz, who has denied all wrongdoing, including having sex with a minor, has called the committee’s investigation a “smear campaign.”
The Department of Justice previously investigated Gaetz’s involvement with the minor as part of a sex trafficking probe, but no charges were brought against him.
House Speaker Mike Johnson said Friday that he would “strongly request” that the House Ethics Committee withhold the report on its investigation into Gaetz.
Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he wants to see the report. GOP Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota isn’t on the Judiciary Committee but said in an interview on CNN, “We should be able to get a hold of [the report], and we should have access to it one way or another, based on the way we do all of these nominations.”
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Croatian authorities arrested an Austrian national on suspicion of trying to smuggle a corpse, after he was stopped at a border crossing with a dead woman riding in his car’s passenger seat, police said Tuesday.
The 65-year-old man was stopped at the Gunja border crossing with Bosnia in late November after presenting travel documents for himself and another passenger, police told AFP in a statement.
The officers then became suspicious after noticing the female passenger “was not conscious and was not communicating.”
Police called a coroner to the scene, who established that the passenger was dead.
Authorities said the 83-year-old woman had died in Bosnia, and the driver had tried to take her body to back Austria to “avoid formalities related to the transport of deceased,” the statement added.
Police did not elaborate on the relationship between the two, but local media has described the man as the deceased’s legal guardian.
Police said the case had been formally handed over to the country’s prosecutors.
Drivers in the U.S. have also been found with corpses in their vehicles for a variety of different reasons. Last year, a man in Texas was arrested after a man’s body was found inside his car nearly 40 miles away from where police there believe he was hit by the car.
In 2014, a Detroit-area man said he refused to stop and contact authorities after one of his passengers died during a drive to Michigan from Arizona because he feared being incarcerated if police investigated. Four years before that, police said a Southern California woman drove around for months with a homeless woman’s mummified body in her passenger seat.
CBS News
Rex Heuermann, alleged Long Island serial killer, due in court as prosecutors promise major development
RIVERHEAD, N.Y. – Accused Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann is due back in court on Long Island Tuesday morning, and prosecutors are promising a major development in the case.
The hearing is set to begin after 9:30 a.m. A press conference is expected at the Suffolk County DA’s office shortly after. We will bring that news conference to you live on CBS News New York.
The judge has previously indicated he wanted to set a trial date at today’s hearing.
Heuermann’s last court appearance was back in October.
Heuermann accused of killing 6 women, so far
Heuermann, 61, has pleaded not guilty to murder charges in the deaths of six women between 1993 and 2011. The remains of 11 people were discovered around Gilgo Beach during that period, and investigators believe Heuermann may be linked to other killings. The Suffolk County DA has said there could be future indictments.
Four of the victims had their bodies disposed of near Gilgo Beach. Two others were murdered as far back as 2003 and 1993. Each of them had been involved in sex work.
Prosecutors allege Heuermann is linked to the murders through DNA, burner phone data, a description of his truck, internet searches and what they call a blueprint for how to get away with murder.
Attorneys wrangle over DNA, volume of evidence
A key point of contention in the new DNA evidence is called SNP, which prosecutors say links the hairs of victims to Heuermann. The defense has called an outside lab’s methods of genetic testing unproven and “magic.”
Another hurdle for prosecutors is the sheer volume of evidence. The DA says they’re struggling to keep up with the costs of processing the 120 terabytes of data and 400 electronic devices seized.
Heuermann’s attorney says his client is looking forward to his day in court and will be pursuing a change of venue, claiming the jury pool in Suffolk has been “poisoned.”
Heuermann remains in isolation in jail.
