Three days after state Rep. Giovanni Capriglione announced he was dropping his reelection bid, the conservative news site Current Revolt published an interview with a former exotic dancer who alleges she had a 17-year affair with the Southlake Republican.
The woman, Alex Grace, alleges that Capriglione paid her for “meetups” and “funded several abortions for his own personal gain.” She declined to provide additional details on the alleged abortions in the interview, saying, “you’re just going to have to go with my word.”
Her interview with Current Revolt was captured in a 25-minute video published Friday.
In a statement, Capriglione admitted he’d had an affair “years ago”, but said the other allegations are “categorically false and easily disproven.” He added that he had “never, nor would I ever, pay for an abortion.”
Capriglione still has another year and a half left in his seventh term representing his North Texas district. The Legislature is currently in the first week of a 30-day special session, in which lawmakers are considering flood relief, redistricting and other conservative priorities. Capriglione was not on the House floor Thursday.
In his statement, Capriglione said he would “fight for the people I represent, the principles we share, and the things that make Texas great until I walk out the door of the legislature for the last time in January of 2027.”
Shortly after the story was published, GOP Rep. Briscoe Cain of Deer Park called for Capriglione to resign and urged the House General Investigating Committee to look into the matter. House Speaker Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, did not respond to a request for comment.
Capriglione has emerged as the chamber’s leading voice on technology-related bills, including chairing the Innovation and Technology Caucus and authoring the Data Privacy and Security Act of 2023. This session, he chaired the Delivery of Government Efficiency Committee, modeled after Elon Musk’s federal cost- and service-cutting committee, and helped establish a Texas Cyber Command, one of Gov. Greg Abbott’s emergency priorities.
In 2021, Capriglione carried the “trigger ban” that allowed Texas to ban nearly all abortions after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. As a result of that bill, performing an abortion in Texas is punishable by up to life in prison. Other laws supported by Capriglione made it a civil offense to “aid and abet” in a prohibited abortion, including paying for someone to terminate their pregnancy in Texas.
Capriglione attributed the allegations to his work “holding the wealthy, the powerful, the corporate elites and the Austin insiders to account.” He pointed to a DOGE committee hearing in which Superior HealthPlan, one of the state’s Medicaid providers, indicated that it had used private investigators to perform surveillance and gather confidential information on lawmakers, journalists and other Texans. After a three-month investigation, the Office of the Attorney General concluded that the company had not violated state law.
Grace alleged that when she was 18 years old, with a young child at home, she started working as an exotic dancer to make money. In 2004, she said, Capriglione came into the club where she was working and stood out as “a very straight-laced businessman.” He came in every few weeks and they developed a relationship.
“We became close friends,” she said. “He was magnetizing. He was outwardly genuine and kind. … He was the one who reminded me to keep my head up. He was the one that encouraged me. He pushed me to succeed more in life.”
They began to meet up at his office in Southlake, and then at hotels, and eventually at his home once while his wife and kids were out of town, she said. He told her that his wife was aware of the relationship, and even encouraged him to go to the Red Light District in Amsterdam every year, but he communicated with a burner email and would often get spooked and cancel on her, she said.
In his statement, Capriglione acknowledged that he had, years ago, “selfishly had an affair,” although he did not confirm that it was with Grace. He said his wife and family forgave him.
“We moved past it and have the strong marriage we do today,” he said. “Their grace, and God’s, is something for which I am grateful every day. I’m a different man than I was because of it.”
He denied ever going to Amsterdam.
Grace said Capriglione gave her “gifts,” including cash payments. On one occasion, she said Capriglione gave her an address to meet up, but when she got there, it was a Chuck E. Cheese.
“He told me to go to the back of the building and next to the dumpster there would be a rubber mat. Look under it,” she recalls him telling her. “And under this rubber mat was an envelope with money.”
Grace said that as Capriglione moved into politics — he was elected to the House in 2012 — they began to drift apart and she began to see him more clearly. She said in 2019 or 2020, they had one phone call where she expressed her anger at his political stances and encouraged him to “stick to who you are.” He hung up, cut all their lines of communication and they never spoke again, Grace said.
She said she sent an email to his legislative email address, expressing her frustrations, that same night, but never heard back.
“I wanted him to stand for what he truly believed,” she said in the interview. “If you are using abortions for your personal gain, if you are using women for your personal gain, why announce to the world that this isn’t who you are?”
Capriglione said he was “not above scrutiny,” but threatened legal action, seemingly against Current Revolt as well as Grace, for what he characterized as “lying and defaming me.”
Great Job Texas Tribune, By Eleanor Klibanoff And Renzo Downey & the Team @ KSAT San Antonio Source link for sharing this story.
