Woman who traveled to Texas with DeSantis’ State Guard says she was sexually harassed

The leader of a small unit sent to the Texas-Mexico border by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ Florida State Guard repeatedly made unwanted sexual advances toward a woman he supervised, according to the woman’s attorney, who says the organization responded to complaints by retaliating against the victim and a witness who reported the behavior.

Michael DiGiacomo, a high-ranking member in the State Guard, is accused of making crude remarks about the woman’s genitalia and body and uttering other demeaning comments in front of other State Guard members.

“Daddy gets what daddy wants,” DiGiacomo told the woman in the presence of another State Guard member during the ride to Texas, according to one witness statement. Later, on a call played on a vehicle’s Bluetooth, he allegedly asked her, “Are you going to make daddy a sandwich?” while another State Guard member laughed in the background.

The sexual harassment was persistent for at least four months, witnesses said, and escalated in March during the deployment to Texas, where a five-person unit was sent to respond to immigration. While there, the woman told another member of the State Guard that she was “afraid and needed help.” At one point, she called police in Del Rio, Texas and said she feared someone broke into her hotel room, a police report states.

After alleged harassment was reported to State Guard leaders, the woman was removed from her assignment, which she viewed as punishment for reporting the behavior, her attorney, Tiffany Cruz, told the Herald/Times. The woman is not being named because she’s an alleged victim of sexual harassment.

“My client courageously reported sexual harassment that was occurring in the Florida State Guard expecting leadership to properly handle the matter,” Cruz said. “Instead, my client has faced retaliation, which is both unlawful and unacceptable.”

Cruz said DeSantis’ office was also made aware of the allegations in a March email. His office did not respond when asked for comment.

The incident — the second known case of alleged sexual harassment and retaliation within DeSantis’ paramilitary force since it was reactivated in 2022 — threatens to further tarnish the reputation of the fledgling organization, which DeSantis has placed at the forefront of his immigration enforcement platform.

Since its inception, it’s been plagued by high turnover and allegations of unprofessionalism and questionable recruiting. State Guard members are volunteers who receive daily stipends.

Read more: An infamous Miami cop joins Ron DeSantis’ paramilitary force

The State Guard acknowledged that it has an active investigation into sexual misconduct, but declined to comment on what it has done in response to the sexual harassment allegations.

Speaking to the most recent case, Sierra Dean, a spokesperson for the State Guard, said that once the investigation concludes, “we will take the appropriate actions necessary to maintain a safe environment for our members and the people we serve.”

Cruz, however, said State Guard leaders promoted DiGiacomo after being made aware of the sexual harassment allegations.

“We are committed to ensuring that her rights are protected and that the responsible parties are held accountable for their actions,” Cruz said. “This situation highlights the urgent need for workplaces to take harassment claims seriously and to support, rather than punish, those who come forward.”

Bad behaviors reported

The Herald/Times reached out to every member of the State Guard named in this story. None of them commented for this story, with some leaving messages unanswered. Under the State Guard’s policies, members are “strictly prohibited from engaging with media outlets” without authorization from their chain of command. If they talk to reporters, members may be punished.

DiGiacomo, a South Florida boat captain who owns a yacht insurance agency, is an E-9 sergeant major in the State Guard, the highest rank an enlisted member can receive. In the U.S. Army, those who hold that rank serve as senior policy development advisors and make sure the commander’s vision and mission intent is carried out.

According to witness statements, several State Guard members noticed that in February he started to take an unusual interest in the female Guard member during a month-long training camp.

One witness reported that DiGiacomo, 52, would repeatedly call the woman on the phone, bring her up in casual conversation and go out of his way to spend time with her.

At one point, DiGiacomo accused one member, Axl David, of “spreading rumors” about him and the woman being together in a room during the training camp — a claim David denied, according to his statement. Days later, DiGiacomo told David he had been in her room at one point. He explained that he was helping the woman through some personal issues, and that David was “compromising her healing/recovery,” David wrote in his statement.

DiGiacomo then said he was planning on adding the woman to the Texas deployment, “seemingly so that he could be with her during the entirety of that deployment,” David wrote.

“I feel DiGiacomo is abusing his power and authority, and deflecting his apparent wrongdoing by placing a target on others,” he wrote.

In another instance, DiGiacomo boasted to a State Guard member under his command that he had floored his white Camaro while she was in the car with him to “make her pu–y purr by the roar of the engine,” according to a witness statement obtained by the Herald/Times.

“I felt extremely uncomfortable with the conversation,” Joshua Nelson, a State Guard member and former Tampa police officer, wrote in a statement.

On the road trip to Texas in March, DiGiacomo asked the woman to say what she found attractive in men. She did not engage in the conversation, but DiGiacomo told her that he liked “assets in a woman by showing a heavy emphasis on the ‘ass’ part of the word,” Nelson’s report states.

While in Texas, the woman confided in Nelson that DiGiacomo would not leave her alone and continued to harass her sexually with vulgar comments, Nelson wrote. She later explained that DiGiacomo at one point tried to hold her hand as he told her he wanted to “‘manifest’ things into existence” with her, the report says.

Retaliation?

In witness statements, those who reported the harassment said that there were attempts to intimidate them.

After Nelson became aware of the alleged harassment, he said he kept a closer eye on the situation to make sure DiGiacomo “was not left alone with her for safety issues.” At that point, the woman was avoiding DiGiacomo and had told Nelson she did not feel safe around him, Nelson wrote in a report.

That’s when one of DiGiacomo’s friends, Patrick McDonough, told Nelson that he should not allow the woman to “influence him” and proceeded to tell him that “you can tell her, if she’s going to push back then I’m going to push back too,” according to his statement.

When Nelson reported the situation to supervisors, one told him that those statements could be perceived as threats. Although Nelson said he personally took the statements to be “passive aggressive threats,” another supervisor advised him to stay in his Del Rio, Texas hotel room and lock the door and wait for further instructions, the report states.

Previous harassment alleged

The episode happened nearly a year after a State Guard executive employee filed a harassment complaint against Florida National Guard Lt. Col. Peter Jennison, who led the State Guard’s first training class last year.

Within two weeks, she was isolated from work colleagues, left out of meetings, not told about schedule changes and banned from the State Guard’s training site, she wrote in her resignation letter dated July 27.

She wrote that the State Guard’s then-chief of staff, Ben Fairbrother, also retaliated against her by giving her a poor performance review, according to her resignation letter.

“The harassment and retaliation targeted towards me by the Florida State Guard leadership has cause (sic) irrevocable damage to my health and personal wellbeing,” she wrote in her resignation letter, obtained through a public records request. “Mr. Fairbrother engaged in a practice of deception and untruths in an effort to malign my reputation and diminish the value my experience brought to the team.”

Details about the alleged harassment were not included in the letter. The Department of Military Affairs’ inspector general investigated her claim of retaliation and dismissed it because she didn’t have enough evidence, according to the department’s report. The woman declined to comment.

Fairbrother, who was chosen for the job by DeSantis’ office, resigned in September. Jennison has since retired from the Florida National Guard. Neither responded to calls or texts seeking comment.

In 2019, the Florida National Guard was embroiled in a series of sexual misconduct allegations and coverups dating back a decade. The organization’s second-in-command resigned during the probe.

This story was originally published May 30, 2024 at 5:30 AM.