Kathy Castor

Matthew Chapman attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and lives in San Marcos, Texas. Before joining Raw Story, he wrote for Shareblue and AlterNet, specializing in election and policy coverage.

A late ad push is targeting Florida Sen. Ashley Moody over her record on releasing Jeffrey Epstein’s files, The New York Times reported on Thursday.

In the ad, Marina Lacerda, 38, says she met Epstein at 13 and asks Moody, a Republican, “How can you put your political career above abused children?” It says Moody “cast the deciding vote to block the release of the Epstein files.”

The New York Times says this is misleading, however. In September 2025, Democrats attached a measure to the defense budget to force a Republican vote on releasing the files, and Moody and 50 other Republicans blocked it. But two months later, the Senate approved a standalone release bill by unanimous consent, which the ad leaves out.

“These false attack ads are a desperate attempt to slander Ashley Moody’s indisputable record of fighting and delivering for sexual assault survivors, including voting to release the Epstein files,” Joanna Rodriguez, a spokeswoman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told the outlet. “Anyone who says otherwise is peddling disgusting lies and using survivors as political pawns.”

A new super PAC backed by Democratic lawyer Steve Pajcic has put $2 million behind the ad, AdImpact says. Pajcic said Moody “voted against the young girls who were sexually abused.” The Republican Senate campaign arm calls the ads false and says Moody backed the release, and her office said she supported the Epstein Files Transparency Act without answering other questions.

The Times says ads referencing Epstein have run in 63 congressional races, totaling $76 million. It describes Moody as a cautious senator who rarely talks to reporters beyond Fox News, with few public comments on Epstein since her January 2025 appointment. She faces Democratic state Rep. Angie Nixon.

Florida Rep. Kathy Castor, a Democrat, said Moody’s silence was “very strange” for a former attorney general who emphasized fighting human trafficking. Castor appeared in Tampa Thursday with Lacerda and fellow survivor Sharlene Rochard at a stop for a truck carrying printouts of the files.

President Donald Trump has denied wrongdoing in connection with Epstein’s crimes, though extensive reporting has revealed the two shared a friendship well past the years he claimed to have kicked the financier out of his social circle.

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