GOP donor Anton Lazzaro faces trial on expenses of intercourse trafficking minors
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A previously well-connected Republican donor, accused of plying petite, weak teenage ladies with money, liquor and items, goes on trial Tuesday on federal expenses of intercourse trafficking minors.
Anton “Tony” Lazzaro is charged with seven counts involving “industrial intercourse acts” with 5 minors ages 15 and 16 in 2020, when he was 30 years outdated.
His indictment touched off a political firestorm that led to the downfall of Jennifer Carnahan as chair of the Republican Get together of Minnesota.
His co-defendant, Gisela Castro Medina, who previously led the College Republicans chapter on the College of St. Thomas, pleaded responsible to 2 counts final 12 months.
She is cooperating with prosecutors and can testify in opposition to him. She faces sentencing in August.
Lazzaro denies the sex-trafficking allegations.
He says the federal government focused him for political causes and due to his wealth.
Prosecutors say it’s merely a sex-trafficking case.
They haven’t signaled any intent to name political figures as witnesses, nor has the protection.
US District Decide Patrick Schiltz has already rejected Lazzaro’s claims of selective prosecution.
However Lazzaro insists he’s harmless and that the fees are politically motivated.
“Mr. Lazzaro believes he’s being focused by the US Division of Justice for his political actions,” spokeswoman Stacy Bettison mentioned in a press release to The Related Press.
“The bizarre utility of the federal intercourse trafficking statute to the information in Mr. Lazzaro’s case helps his beliefs. He’s not alone in his view that the US Division of Justice is politicizing prosecutions. Many different people, together with many members of Congress and most lately the Senate Judiciary Committee, have lately raised respectable and credible considerations that Lawyer Basic (Merrick) Garland is politicizing the division by aggressively investigating Republicans and conservative activists, like Mr. Lazzaro.”
Carnahan is the widow of US Rep. Jim Hagedorn, who died of kidney cancer in February 2022.
She denied figuring out of any wrongdoing by Lazzaro earlier than the fees had been unsealed in August 2021, and she or he condemned his alleged crimes.
However his arrest fueled outrage amongst social gathering activists. Allegations surfaced that she created a toxic work environment and abused nondisclosure agreements to silence her critics.
She resigned every week later.
Carnahan and Lazzaro grew to become buddies when she ran unsuccessfully for a legislative seat in 2016.
He backed her bid to turn out to be social gathering chair in 2017 and attended her 2018 marriage ceremony to Hagedorn.
They hosted a podcast collectively for a number of months.
Lazzaro additionally helped run the marketing campaign of Republican Lacy Johnson, who failed to unseat Democratic US Rep. Ilhan Omar, of Minnesota, in 2020.
Footage on Lazzaro’s social media accounts confirmed him with outstanding Republicans, together with former President Donald Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence.
He based a political motion committee referred to as Massive Tent Republicans, which advocated for a extra inclusive social gathering.
Lazzaro gave greater than $270,000 to Republican campaigns and political committees over time, together with $42,000 to the state social gathering group and $31,000 to Hagedorn’s marketing campaign.
A number of recipients shortly donated these contributions to charity after the fees grew to become public, together with US Rep. Tom Emmer, of Minnesota, who acquired $15,600 however suffered no repercussions.
Emmer became majority whip in January.
Prosecutors alleged of their trial transient earlier this month that Lazzaro conspired with Castro Medina and others to recruit 15- and 16-year-old ladies to have intercourse with him in alternate for money and invaluable objects.
They met in Might 2020 on a “sugar daddy” web site when she was 18 years outdated and ending highschool, prosecutors wrote.
In response to the transient, Lazzaro had “a acknowledged sexual desire for younger, tiny ladies” and preferred them “damaged” and weak — however with out tattoos.
Prosecutors say he paid Castro Medina “nicely over $50,000,” together with cash for her tuition, her off-campus condo and her Mini Cooper.
He usually despatched automobiles to take the women to his luxurious penthouse rental on the Resort Ivy in downtown Minneapolis, prosecutors mentioned.
“As soon as the women Castro Medina recruited arrived at Lazzaro’s condo, an analogous sample ensued,” the transient alleges. “Lazzaro would brag about his wealth and connections. He would give the women — small and younger — laborious liquor. Lazzaro would take out stacks of money and supply the women exact sums of cash to carry out sure intercourse acts with him, and with one another. $100 to kiss. $400 for intercourse. And so forth. He would ship them dwelling with money, vapes, alcohol, Plan B, cell telephones, and different objects of worth.”
Plan B is a type of emergency contraception.
Lazzaro can also be the goal of a lawsuit by one alleged sufferer who claims he offered $1,000 in hush money to her and her mother and father and requested them to signal a nondisclosure settlement.
The costs in opposition to Lazzaro, who has been jailed since his arrest and has been denied bail, carry necessary minimal sentences of 10 years with a most potential of life in jail.