The Republican former congressman Matt Gaetz has been accused of participating in the sex trafficking of two young women in a civil lawsuit filed Thursday in district court in Florida.

The allegations, which Gaetz denied in a statement to the Guardian, are the latest developments in a long-running sexual abuse scandal involving the politician who resigned from Congress in November 2024.

In the 38-page lawsuit, filed in US district court for the middle district of Florida, the women identified as Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2 claim Gaetz and two others “coordinated the recruitment, payments, drugs, and travel to obtain commercial sexual acts” from them “during 2017 through January 2019”.

“The defendants collectively used their public office, power, and wealth to prey on the economic vulnerability of Plaintiffs to commit the acts,” according to the lawsuit, which identified the alleged victims as recently graduated high school students.

One of the defendants, Joel Micah Greenberg, a close associate of Gaetz, and the former tax collector of Seminole county, pleaded guilty in May 21 to six federal offenses: sex trafficking of a child, illegally producing a false identification document, aggravated identity theft, wire fraud, stalking, and conspiracy. Greenberg was sentenced to 11 years in federal prison.

Gaetz rejected the new lawsuit’s allegations in a statement to the Guardian.

“I look forward to taking the plaintiffs’ depositions because much of the conduct alleged against me is false,” he wrote.

“The lawsuit relies almost exclusively on a Congressional Committee Report that didn’t allow me to confront my accusers. Now I will finally have that chance.”

Gaetz attached a photograph of three women in swimsuits from a social media post in September 2018 that appeared to show them on a beach in the Bahamas, with the caption: “#beers and #babes are all you ever need”.

Gaetz said: “I don’t know if this is Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2 or not. But if it is they seemed to portray their Bahamian trip differently on social media than in their lawsuit seeking money.”

The congressional report Gaetz refers to was part of a bipartisan House ethics committee investigation into his alleged misconduct. That investigation was terminated when he resigned in November 2024 from his north Florida congressional seat shortly after being nominated by Donald Trump to become attorney general.

The investigation found evidence that he made payments of tens of thousands of dollars to women for sex and drugs on at least 20 occasions.

Gaetz subsequently withdrew from the controversial nomination amid intense scrutiny of the allegations sexual misconduct, saying they were “becoming a distraction to the critical work” of the then upcoming second Trump administration.