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In August federal prosecutors accused Stephen Alford of trying to defraud US Rep. Matt Gaetz’s father Don Gaetz out of $25 million. And last week Stephen Alford, 62, pleaded guilty in an attempt to extort $25 million from Matt Gaetz’s father. According to The Washington Examiner, the announcement by the Justice Department marks a turnaround as Alford initially entered a not guilty plea. A charge of tampering with evidence was tossed, according to Northwest Florida Daily News .

Congressman Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) has been exonerated and the Department of Justice’s sex trafficking investigation has been shut down as the man who made the false allegations is now behind bars. Florida developer and convicted fraud, Stephen Alford, faced a judge on Tuesday after he was indicted for extortion. According to a newly unsealed indictment, the 62-year-old spread lies about Gaetz as part of a complex scheme to defraud Gaetz’s father of $25 million. “Alford is alleged to have been involved in a scheme to obtain money based upon false promises or guarantees he made to the victim that Alford...

The man accused of trying to extort $25 million from Rep. Matt Gaetz’s family admitted Monday that he asked the congressman’s dad for cash — but denied that it was a shakedown. Bob Kent, an ex-Air Force intelligence officer, confirmed to Sirius Radio host Michael Smerconish that he approached the Florida Republican’s dad, Don Gaetz, for money last month. The funds, Kent said, were to pay for an effort to free Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent who disappeared in Iran in 2007, and is believed to be dead. Kent claimed he has video evidence that Levinson is still alive...

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Rep. Matt Gaetz’s father, Don, a former Florida Senate president, said he is working with the FBI, including wearing a wire on more than one occasion as part of an investigation into an alleged extortion plot that the pair said was organized by former federal prosecutor David McGee. “The FBI asked me to try and get that information for Matt and an indication we would transfer money to Mr. David McGee,” Don Gaetz said in an interview late Tuesday, without specifying what information he was referring to. McGee, who is now in private practice with a Pensacola,...

The material suggests that Gaetz’s father was told his son’s legal problems could go away if he gave $25 million to help secure the release of Iranian hostage Bob Levinson. --- The scandal swirling around Rep. Matt Gaetz took a stunning turn Wednesday with the news that a former Air Force intelligence official and a Florida lawyer tried to get the congressman’s dad to cough up $25 million that would be used to free American Bob Levinson from Iranian custody—and somehow release Gaetz from a federal sex-crimes investigation. And if that wasn’t enough, here’s one more strange fact: Levinson was...