‘BANTER’

Florida Lawmaker Sues Her Ex-Campaign Manager for Sexual Harassment

Florida Rep. Jackie Toledo has accused Fred Piccolo, a onetime spokesman for Gov. Ron DeSantis, of sending her “grossly offensive harassing text messages and images.”

A Florida state congresswoman filed a lawsuit against her former campaign manager on Monday, accusing him of sexual harassment. In her complaint, Rep. Jackie Toledo (R) alleged that Fred Piccolo—also a onetime spokesman for Gov. Ron DeSantis’ campaign—sent her “unwanted, unsolicited, inappropriate and grossly offensive harassing text messages and images.” Several of the messages are attached as exhibits to the lawsuit, and include Piccolo’s bare-chested selfies and requests for advice about his wife’s “breast augmentation” surgery. Piccolo has not disputed the authenticity of the messages, but alleged that Toledo was suing him as retribution over a dispute to do with a supposed failure to compensate him for work on her campaign. In a Tuesday statement to the News Service of Florida, Piccolo dismissed the messages, saying, “I have known Jackie Toledo for 10 years, I thought we were friends. At no point did the banter we engage in exceed those boundaries. Jackie got wind of intent to file a lawsuit for failure to pay and this is an outrageous attempt to sully my name to prevent that lawsuit.”