A transcript of a sex video provided by Christian Ziegler confirms details that ultimately undermined a rape accusation against him. But the same records batch also provides more context of a previous threesome between the woman, Ziegler and his wife, Sarasota County School Board member Bridget Ziegler.
The records were released to the Florida Center For Government Accountability, which has fought for the release of documents around the now-closed criminal investigation of Ziegler. The just-released video transcript confirms graphic details that police sources had previously relayed to the organization.
The recent batch of records includes the transcript of a 1-minute-and-44-second video Ziegler provided to police when he was accused of rape by a woman in Sarasota. "Police were able to authenticate that the video was taken on 10/2/23," the police report said, referencing the date of a sexual encounter between Ziegler and the woman.
The woman, at the urging of her sister, had told police that Ziegler arranged an encounter in advance. But electronic communications previously showed that when she learned Bridget Ziegler would not be joining, the woman advised Ziegler not to show up. "Sorry I was mostly in for her," the woman texted Christian Ziegler.
But he showed up anyway. The woman told police that Ziegler forced her to have sex with him. She also said she was drinking the day of the incident.
Ziegler has long maintained that the sexual encounter was consensual, and police ultimately reached the same conclusion. The video transcript indicates some of the factual evidence behind that.
The video of the sexual encounter is shot on Ziegler's phone and never shows his face. It's unclear from the transcript if the woman knew he was videoing the encounter on the phone, as it was shot from behind "where she could not see what was going on."
Ziegler at one point during the short video laid the phone on a bed facedown, but it continues to record audio as Ziegler reaches a sexual climax. The woman asks if he would like to do so "in my mouth," and later adds "just not on my shirt."
Ziegler professes the under-two-minute encounter with the woman was the fastest he had reached orgasm "in 30 years."
"I ain't even that good," the woman responds.
The evidence ultimately led police to deem the encounter was "likely consensual," and detectives did not recommend that the former Sarasota County Commissioner be charged with rape.
But police did recommend Ziegler face a charge of video voyeurism for filming the sexual encounter without the woman's knowledge.
Records released along with the transcript show further interviews with the woman as well. One inconsistency in the story had been she initially said she was assaulted at her breakfast bar before Ziegler left, but the video shows sex in a bedroom.
The woman in an interview with detectives when shown the video said she had no memory of sex occurring in her bedroom, and said she "would not consent to being videoed." The woman said "she did not know he took a video, and that her memory was of everything happening in the kitchen," the report said.
The State Attorney's Office, though, decided not to prosecute based on the video and inconsistencies with the woman's account.
"The Victim's expressed inability to recall whether she consented to recording the sexual activity along with her inconsistencies pertaining to key details of the event leave the State unable to demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that the video in question was filmed without her knowledge or consent," prosecutors wrote in a March memo.
She said she had no recollection of that happening in past encounters with Ziegler, whom she met at a bar 20 years prior.
The woman and the Zieglers have admitted to a past three-way sexual encounter, police records show. The police reports also include a series of texts in June 2021 between the Zieglers, where he talks about running into the woman at a bar some time after the encounter with the couple.
"C. Ziegler messaged that he should have filmed" the woman "and they could watch it later as pornography," the report said.
The prior February, Christian Ziegler texted Bridget Ziegler that the woman thought she was "hot, and he believes she is only into her." He then says Bridget should pick up the woman "to play again and be crazy."
Bridget responds that she "prefers confident empowered people." Christian said he liked the woman "was close and there was no drama which turns him on."
Police ultimately seized more than 26,000 videos from Ziegler's phone as part of the investigation.
23-048937 PCA Redacted by Jacob Ogles on Scribd
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