Christian Ziegler’s rights were violated by law enforcement: Court documents
SARASOTA, Fla. - The court handed Christian and Bridget Ziegler a win recently by declaring that the former Florida GOP chairman’s rights were violated, and information found on his cellphone during a video voyeurism investigation is not public record and must be returned.
The Zieglers sued the city of Sarasota and the State Attorney’s Office to prevent the release of certain public records that were gathered during a recent rape and video voyeurism investigation.
The couple claimed releasing this information would violate their rights to privacy, causing great humiliation and harm to their reputations, meaning that "the proverbial cat would be out of the bag."
Documents show that a woman whom Christian Ziegler had known for 14 years accused him of rape last October. While investigating the alleged sexual assault, police, using a series of search warrants, got access to the entire contents of Christian Ziegler’s cellphone, Google Drive and Instagram account.
According to a court document, law enforcement rifled through more than 250,000 photos and more than 30,000 videos on Christian Ziegler’s phone even though they showed no evidence of a crime. They also seized more than 1,200 text communications between the Ziegler’s, most of which were sent two years before the alleged criminal incident on Oct. 2, 2023.
The court said Christian Ziegler’s cellphone contained the most data of any cellphone extraction performed by the Sarasota Police Department. It took about five days to download because SPD’s software kept crashing because of the amount of data that was taken.
Although a detective testified that the images and videos did not depict the alleged victim or any apparent criminal activity, court documents state that SPD uploaded them to Evidence.com on the off chance they "might subsequently prove to contain evidence of prior bad acts relating to other crimes." However, that was not identified in the warrant.
The city has already responded to some requests and has released several items, including a redacted police report, audio records, and interview transcripts.
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In January, police released records that included details from a search of his phone, including messages between Christian and Bridget Ziegler, in which she is reluctant about having a possible three-way encounter with the woman who accused Chrisitan Ziegler of rape.
Police said during separate interviews with Christian Ziegler, his wife, and the woman, all three confirmed previous threesomes in which the sexual encounters were consensual.
According to the police reports, on the date of the incident, the woman was expecting both Ziegler’s to participate, but before arriving, Christian Ziegler messaged the woman that his wife would not be with him. Police said the woman responded that Bridget Ziegler was really who she was interested in and advised Christian Ziegler not to show up.
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The woman told police he showed up anyway, and once inside her home, sexually battered her.
Police said Christian Ziegler was cooperative throughout the investigation and gave them a copy of the sexual encounter, which he recorded on his cellphone. In a statement released on January 19, police said "the video showed the encounter was likely consensual."
While detectives said they were unable to develop probable cause to charge Christian Ziegler with sexual battery, law enforcement officers were aware that he had recorded the sexual encounter with his cellphone. Because it is a crime in Florida to film a sexual encounter without the knowledge and consent of the other person, police submitted the video voyeurism charge to the State Attorney's Office.
Ultimately, the SAO said it was ultimately unable to determine that the encounter was filmed without the woman's consent due to a couple of different factors, including her inability to recall whether she consented to the video and other inconsistencies in her recounting of the incident.
On Monday, the court ruled that the search warrants were overbroad and there was no seizure protocol to guide law enforcement’s search of Christian Ziegler’s property. The court concluded that "law enforcement’s handling of the three overbroad warrants were patently unreasonable and violated Christian Ziegler’s rights."
The court stated that Christian Ziegler has the right to take back his property seized through "unconstitutional warrants." The ruling went on to state that while the Zieglers may be high-profile figures in the community, it does not mean they gave up their constitutional rights.
In its ruling, the court stated that the information pulled from Christian Ziegler's cell phone and accounts is not public record and since he was not arrested and there is no criminal investigation, any copies of the information should be destroyed.
In a statement to FOX 13, Christian Ziegler's attorney Matthew Sarelson said, "We’re grateful the Court took the time to do a deep dive into Constitutional law because it’s the Constitution that gives us the victory. These were three, overbroad, general warrants to obtain literally everything on Christian’s phone, which is tantamount to everything in this life. Our Constitution requires more nuance because broad general warrants are patently unlawful. And on top of this, Christian was neither arrested nor charged. This is a win for all Floridians, not just Christian and Bridget. Hopefully, something like this never happens to anyone else ever again."
The Sarasota Police Department issued the following statement in response to the court's ruling:
"The Sarasota Police Department is aware of the ruling and is working in coordination with the City Attorney’s Office and the State Attorney’s Office to review the decision."
Florida’s Republican Party removed Christian Ziegler as party chairman and while Sarasota County School Board members called for Bridget Ziegler to resign, she did not heed their recommendation and remains on the school board.
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