How medical marijuana, powerful allies fueled rise of doctor embroiled in scandal.

In May 2014, just before the Florida Legislature passed the state’s first medical marijuana law, thenstate House Reps. Matt Gaetz and Jason Brodeur teamed up to add a provision to the bill forcing any company that wanted to grow and sell cannabis in Florida to also hire a physician as medical director.

One week later, records show, one of their friends — Orlando hand doctor Jason Pirozzolo, who had been on the floor of the state House that day — started a new consulting business providing medical directors to cannabis companies.

It was an entrance onto the ground floor of the medical marijuana industry in Florida, a business that helped propel Pirozzolo from secondary political player popular with a handful of Republican members in the state House of Representatives to successful entrepreneur and major GOP fundraiser who personally flew future Gov. Ron DeSantis around the state and whose fundraisers drew politicians from across Florida to his

5,000-square-foot home in Winter Garden.

It’s also part of how Pirozzolo became so personally close with Gaetz — now a member of Congress — that the two of them would be part of an intimate group that traveled to The Bahamas in 2018, on a trip that investigators are now scrutinizing for alleged violations of sex-trafficking laws.

Pirozzollo, according to a report by CBS News, allegedly paid for young female escorts to accompany the men on the trip, which investigators learned about as part of a probe into disgraced former Seminole County Tax Collector Joel Greenberg, who is facing 33 federal charges.

Pirozzolo, 44, declined to comment through an attorney.

Gaetz did not respond to requests for comment. But the 38-year-old Congressman, who is reportedly the subject of an investigation into whether he had sex with a 17-yearold girl he met through Greenberg, has broadly denied all allegations and specifically denied ever paying for sex or having sex as an adult with a minor.

Brodeur, who is now a state senator representing Seminole and Volusia counties, has not been accused of any wrongdoing and did not respond to requests for comment.

Pilot skills boosted ‘Doc P’ popularity

Though he’s never held elected office himself, Jason Pirozzolo has spent more than a decade cultivating relationships with others who do — especially in Tallahassee, where Republicans have controlled all levers of state government for nearly 25 years.

A nonsurgical doctor who has practiced since 2011 at Orlando Hand Surgery Associates, Pirozzolo first rose to prominence in Florida politics through friendships with Republican politicians in Seminole County, particularly Brodeur and former legislator turned lobbyist Chris Dorworth.

When Pirozzolo got married in 2012, 18th Circuit Judge Michael Rudisill, another prominent Seminole County politician, performed the ceremony. (The marriage would end in divorce a little more than one year later.)

By 2010, Pirozzolo had enough influential friends in Tallahassee that Gov. Charlie Crist, who was then a Republican, appointed Pirozzolo to a seat on the board that runs Orlando International Airport, a coveted assignment helping control hundreds of millions of dollars a year in spending. During a September 2013 board meeting, Pirozzolo attempted to give a lobbying contract to Ballard Partners, the Tallahassee firm that Dorworth worked at until he resigned recently.

The Orlando Sentinel interviewed more than a dozen former House members, marijuana investors, lobbyists and doctors who know Pirozzolo. Most of them declined to speak on the record because they didn’t want their names attached to the scandal.

One marijuana associate said he thinks Pirozzolo became popular with legislators in part because “Doc P” was a pilot who had access to a plane. “It’s kind of like the guy that’s got the boat,” he said.

As a pilot, Pirozzolo was able to fly frequently to Tallahassee to be “doctor of the day,” volunteering as a physician for legislators and legislative employees during session. Pirozzolo has been doctor of the day 30 times since 2011, according to House and Senate records, including 27 times in the state House alone.

Former House Speaker Will Weatherford, a Republican from Pasco County, once joked that Pirozzolo was “starting a satellite office in Tallahassee.”

Volunteering as doctor of the day came with a valuable perk: Direct access to policymakers on the floor of the House and Senate, an exclusive space off limits to most lobbyists.

“Dr. Pirozzolo flies up to Tallahassee several times a year during session to volunteer in the Capitol Clinic, taking care of all us legislators,” former state Rep. Ritch Workman, a Republican from Brevard County, said in a 2015 video testimonial for Pirozzolo’s medical practice.

“And while he’s there, he’s sure to give us advice on great legislation to pass to make health care more accessible to Florida citizens,” Workman added. “He’s been a big help in helping us pass some significant legislation.”

Workman could not be reached for comment.

Stake in marijuana business

Pirozzolo was serving as the House’s doctor of the day once again on May 1, 2014, when the House took up the medical marijuana legislation sponsored by Gaetz and added the amendment sponsored by Brodeur that forced companies that wanted a dispensing license to also hire a medical director.

The idea to require medical directors came from Pirozzolo, according to a person familiar with the discussions who spoke only on the condition that they not be identified. Pirozzolo, this person said, suggested the provision as a way to get medical lobbies on board with the legislation.

The “Compassionate Medical Cannabis Act of 2014,” formally passed the Legislature one day later, on May 2, 2014. Pirozzolo started his new consulting business, called “Florida Health Privilege,” on May 9, 2014.

That 2014 law initially authorized only five marijuana licenses for the entire state. Winter Gardenbased Knox Nursery contracted with Pirozzolo’s new business for a medical director and then won the license for Central Florida.

It’s not clear how much Pirozzolo earned on the deal, but regulatory filings in Canada show he and a longtime partner — Dr. Orlando Florete, the medical director of a pain clinic in Jacksonville — were at some point given a stake in Knox’s new medical marijuana business.

It wasn’t the only marijuana venture that Pirozzolo launched.

In 2016, the Legislature passed another law — sponsored by Gaetz, Brodeur and a third legislator — expanding the type of medical marijuana that patients could use and the conditions for which physicians could prescribe it.

A few months later, Pirozzolo started the American Medical Marijuana Physicians Association, a for-profit business that provides continuing education programs for doctors and organizes events promoting the industry. Pirozzolo’s longtime girlfriend, Savara Hastings, is the association’s executive director.

The organization’s events regularly drew prominent Florida political figures, including Gaetz, Democratic Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, several state legislators and Roger Stone, the controversial political strategist who was pardoned by former President Donald Trump for crimes that included witness tampering.

Megan Zalonka, the director of communications for AMMPA, also briefly worked for Greenberg: She was paid $7,000 for a consulting gig at the Seminole County Tax Collector’s Office, according to records. Employees later told auditors that they weren’t sure what she did.

Fortunes swelled with marijuana biz

When Pirozzolo married in 2012, he told the court his net worth was

$30,000, according to his prenuptial agreement.

But as the marijuana industry’s fortunes swelled, so did Pirozzolo’s. When Knox was acquired by Miami-based Cansortium Inc., records show that he and his partner Florete were given a stake in the new company valued at the time at

$2.1 million. One year later, Pirozzolo bought a second home in Key West for $700,000.

Pirozzolo also grew as a Republican fundraiser.

In February 2017, Pirozzolo hosted a fundraiser at his home for Brodeur, who had just launched a campaign for the state Senate. Nearly 100 people, including more than two dozen current and former elected officials, attended, according to the guest list.

In August 2018, shortly before the Republican primary election for governor, Pirozzolo hosted another major fundraiser — this time for DeSantis, who would go on to win that year’s race for governor and then put Pirozzolo back on the board that runs Orlando International Airport.

Two of the people with DeSantis at Pirozzolo’s house that evening: Gaetz and Halsey Beshears, another former Republican state House member who DeSantis would later appoint secretary of the state agency that regulates everything from bars and restaurants to salons and racetracks.

And about one month after that fundraiser, Gaetz and Beshears would travel with Pirozzolo to The Bahamas, according to a report in Politico, which is the trip that is now under investigation. At least five young women joined the men on getaway, Politico reported, including the former 17-year-old who is part of the Gaetz investigation.

One person who has worked with Pirozzolo described him as a “colorful” personality. He flies everything from jets to helicopters, once had a limousine and, according to another person, frequently flies to Key West for weekends and often posts videos of himself to Snapchat.

Still, most of the people who spoke to the Sentinel said they were stunned by reports of Pirozzolo’s Bahamas trip and the allegations of sex trafficking.

The scandal appears to have upended his professional life: Orlando Hand Surgery has scrubbed Pirozzolo from its website and a receptionist said Friday that he is out on “emergency leave” and they do not know when he will be back. Pirozzolo had already resigned from the Orlando airport board last summer, not long after Greenberg was first indicted.

“I was surprised and saddened by that,” said Barry Gordon, a doctor who worked with Pirozzolo through his marijuana physicians association. “I hope he’s not deeply implicated.”