Ex-Florida GOP Chair Christian Ziegler Won’t Be Charged With Sexual Assault

The former chairman of the Republican Party of Florida who was ousted earlier this month amid a criminal investigation will not be charged with sexual battery, the Sarasota Police Department said on Friday. But the authorities will seek to charge him with video voyeurism, a felony.

Christian Ziegler, the ousted chairman, recorded a sexual encounter he had in October with a woman who later accused him of assault. The recording occurred without her knowledge or consent, the Police Department said in a statement. Officers prepared a probable cause affidavit for the video voyeurism charge and sent it to state prosecutors on Friday.

They did not pursue a more serious sexual battery charge because the video, which the police obtained, “showed that the encounter was likely consensual,” the statement said.

The woman, whose name has been redacted from public records, told the police that she had had a consensual sexual encounter with Mr. Ziegler and his wife, Bridget Ziegler, more than a year ago, but that she had declined to have sex with Mr. Ziegler on Oct. 2 after realizing that his wife would not be joining them.

Mr. Ziegler, 40, then went to her apartment uninvited, the woman told the police, and sexually assaulted her. He told the police that the encounter had been consensual, and that he had filmed it. The criminal investigation was first reported by the Florida Center for Government Accountability, which describes itself as a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization.

“Since Day 1, we have been confident Mr. Ziegler would be exonerated from these baseless allegations,” Derek Byrd, his lawyer, said in a statement on Friday.

The investigation into Mr. Ziegler became public in November and roiled the Republican Party, as leaders from Gov. Ron DeSantis to county-level chairs called on him to step down. He refused and was eventually removed at a special party meeting this month.

His wife, an elected member of the Sarasota County School Board, has herself faced continued calls to resign — including at a board meeting this week — over perceived hypocrisy between her private and public lives. Ms. Ziegler, 41, is a conservative activist who has promoted anti-L.G.B.T.Q. policies in schools and co-founded the right-wing group Moms for Liberty.

“At the beginning of the investigation, we asked and warned the public to withhold judgment of criminal wrongdoing until a thorough investigation of the facts was complete,” Mr. Byrd said. “Sadly, many people and media outlets refused to give Mr. Ziegler that courtesy. That was unfair and unfortunate and has caused irreparable harm to Mr. Ziegler’s reputation, his personal life, professional life, and his family.”

Mr. Byrd said he was disappointed that the Police Department “punted” on the video voyeurism charge by referring it to prosecutors. “We strongly believe that the state attorney will not prosecute Mr. Ziegler for any crime,” he said.

Since the Police Department began its investigation on Oct. 4, officers conducted nearly a dozen interviews, issued “numerous” subpoenas, reviewed surveillance footage and searched “a substantial number” of images and videos on cellphones and cloud data backups, the police said.