Florida lawmaker will represent himself in sexual harassment trial. What to know
Florida Rep. Fabian Basabe is set to stand trial next week in a civil case accusing him of sexual harassment, battery and defamation.
It won't be your typical trial.
A sitting elected official going to trial is unusual enough. Throw in the fact that Basabe, a Miami Beach Republican, will be representing himself without an attorney, and the scene in Leon County Circuit Court in Tallahassee promises to be unique.
The 2023 lawsuit accuses Basabe of making repeated lewd sexual comments and advances toward a legislative aide and an intern, slapping the aide’s butt without his consent while they attended an elementary school career day in December 2022, and groping and trying to kiss a Florida State University graduate student in a car before hiring him as an intern that same month.
The former legislative aide also claims that Basabe slapped him across the face and told him to stand in a corner at a private event in 2023.
Basabe, who is up for reelection later this year, has vehemently denied the allegations and pointed to the outcome of two investigations commissioned by the Florida House of Representatives that were unable to corroborate the slap and harassment claims. Basabe has also highlighted the dismissal of state ethics complaints filed by the former employees.
Basabe told the Miami Herald in a statement: “After years of scrutiny, multiple independent investigations, ethics proceedings, and extensive review, not a single investigation substantiated the allegations against me. Yet the accusations have consistently received more attention than the facts.”
Basabe said he has refused to settle the case “because I know the truth and refuse to buy my peace.”
“I believe this trial will remind people that in America, reputations are not supposed to be destroyed by accusations,” Basabe said. “They are supposed to be judged by evidence.”
In response to Basabe’s statement, Cindy Myers, an attorney for the two former employees, noted that the employees filed a separate lawsuit against the Florida House of Representatives over its handling of the investigations into Basabe’s conduct.
That lawsuit, which was filed in 2024 and is ongoing, says that the investigative reports left out key details related to the former employees’ claims.
“If anything, these were politically motivated decisions to try to protect a fellow Republican,” Myers told the Herald. “We are certain that these antics are not going to take place in this court of law, and my clients are so thankful that their day in court is finally, finally here.”
Here are five things to know as the trial begins Monday.
1) Basabe isn’t using an attorney
When Basabe, 48, was sued by the two former employees, Nicholas Frevola and Jacob Cutbirth, in July 2023, he retained an attorney, Gus Harper, to represent him.
But in March 2025, Harper withdrew as Basabe’s counsel, writing in a court filing that Basabe “desires to represent himself” in the case.
“The Defendant has been informed of the potential perils of self-representation and is aware of his continuing obligations to opposing counsel and to this Court,” Harper wrote at the time.
Basabe is not an attorney, but he has been representing himself “pro se,” the legal term for a defendant who does not have a lawyer. That’s highly unusual for an elected official and someone of means. Basabe’s net worth at the end of last year was over $3.7 million, according to a financial disclosure form filed in June.
At trial, Basabe will have the ability to testify on his own behalf and to cross-examine witnesses called by the plaintiffs.
That could bring drama. Basabe has been known to use strong, colorful language, including in public statements about the case.
Frevola, the former legislative aide, and his mother — former Republican state House candidate Janette Frevola, who is also a plaintiff — are accusing Basabe of defamation for some of those statements, including one posted on social media after the slap investigation in which Basabe decried it as a “false accusation” made by “lazy, entitled, unscrupulous, self-involved, ungrateful, lying scum.”
“Let others learn and let this episode stand as a warning for those who plot harm,” Basabe said in the statement.
That line, the lawsuit says, was “a clear warning that Basabe will stop at nothing to publicly attack any of his victims who have the courage to complain about his sociopathic conduct.”
2) Other elected officials may testify
The plaintiffs have submitted lengthy witness lists of people who they say observed or knew about Basabe’s alleged mistreatment of Frevola and Cutbirth.
Among those who could be called to testify are several of Basabe’s current and former colleagues in the Florida Legislature.
The high-profile names on the plaintiffs’ most recent witness list include Sen. Jason Pizzo (D-Hollywood), former Republican Rep. Josie Tomkow of Polk City, and Alina Garcia, a former Republican state representative who is now Miami-Dade County’s supervisor of elections.
Previous versions of the plaintiffs’ witness list included former Republican state Rep. Carolina Amesty of Windermere.
Tomkow attended the event in January 2023 at which Frevola alleges that Basabe slapped him. According to a court filing, Tomkow heard Basabe slap Frevola and then saw Basabe’s hand near Frevola’s face.
Pizzo was told about the alleged slap after the event and reached out to Frevola to meet with him, the court filing says.
3) A man who accused Basabe of rape could take the stand
A man who has accused Basabe of drugging and raping him in Los Angeles in 2003 is also on the plaintiffs’ witness list.
The allegation was first reported in October 2024 by the Miami Herald.
The man, whom the Herald allowed to use a pseudonym because he is an alleged victim of sexual assault, said that, after he met Basabe at a nightclub, Basabe made him a drink at an afterparty that caused him to become sick. Shortly after that, the man said, Basabe sexually assaulted him on a couch as he went in and out of consciousness.
He reported the allegations to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department in September 2024, and the department confirmed to the Herald at the time that it had opened an investigation. This week, a department spokesperson said the case was closed and that the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office declined to file charges.
The District Attorney’s Office told the Herald that it determined in October 2024 that the alleged crimes were outside the statute of limitations.
Basabe has asked a judge to prevent the man from testifying, writing in a court filing that the allegation is “wholly separate from the claims asserted in this action and would create substantial prejudice, confusion of issues, undue consumption of time, and multiple collateral mini-trials.”
Basabe has also objected more generally to the plaintiffs’ witness lists, saying they are overly broad and have been improperly amended shortly before trial. Judge J. Lee Marsh has yet to rule on the matter.
4) Cuba Gooding Jr. was once on the witness list
Basabe took an unusual path to politics. He was a reality TV star and socialite in New York in the early 2000s, making headlines in the club scene for years before moving to South Florida.
He has a long history of scandals, including accusations of biting hotel workers at events in 2016 and 2017, allegedly calling a publicist the N-word in 2019, being arrested for disorderly conduct in 2016, and getting arrested again by U.S. Marshals in South Carolina in 2020 for failing to address a criminal charge in Miami-Dade.
Basabe didn’t face charges in the biting incidents. He denied using the N-word in 2019. The disorderly conduct charge was dropped. In the other criminal case, in which Basabe allegedly grabbed a neighbor’s phone and threw it into the water during a dispute at his condo’s pool area, he received a “withhold of adjudication” and paid a fine, court records show.
But Basabe successfully moved into politics, getting elected to the Florida House in 2022. He won reelection in 2024 despite the allegations against him by the two former employees.
In South Florida, both before and since his election, Basabe has stayed close with the actor Cuba Gooding Jr., appearing with him in public and speaking about their friendship.
Gooding Jr. appeared on previous versions of the plaintiffs’ witness list as recently as early June, but his name has since been removed. The prior versions said, in part, that Gooding Jr. “has knowledge of [Basabe] sexually harassing” Frevola.
Gooding Jr. no longer appeared on an amended witness list submitted June 11.
5) The trial could take several days
The trial will be held at the Leon County Courthouse in Tallahassee.
Jury selection is scheduled for Friday. The trial, including opening statements and the start of witness testimony, is set for Monday.
The trial is expected to last several days.
