The former Senate staffer accused of filming himself engaging in explicit sexual activity in a congressional hearing room will not face criminal charges, the United States Capitol Police said on Thursday.
A USCP spokesperson announced the news in a statement, saying that the department was closing the investigation into the matter about six weeks after the pornographic materials began circulating online.
“After consulting with federal and local prosecutors, as well as doing a comprehensive investigation and review of possible charges, it was determined that — despite a likely violation of Congressional policy — there is currently no evidence that a crime was committed,” the statement read. “Although the hearing room was not open to the public at the time, the Congressional staffer involved had access to the room.”
“The two people of interest were not cooperative, nor were the elements of any of the possible crimes met. The Congressional staffer, who has since resigned from his job, exercised his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent and refused to talk to us,” it continued. “Our investigators are willing to review new evidence should any come to light.”
Explicit video footage was published in mid-December that showed two men engaging in sexual intercourse on the dais of a Senate hearing room. The Daily Caller, which obtained the pornographic material, reported that the footage was filmed by a congressional staffer inside the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing room in the Hart Senate Office Building, which is known for high-profile confirmation hearings for Supreme Court justices.
Although the outlet did not name the staffer in question, Aidan Maese-Czeropski’s name was subsequently widely shared on social media. Maese-Czeropski was a legislative aide in Sen. Ben Cardin’s (D-MD) office before the video came out, which resulted in his termination.
The footage was published hours after the American Spectator reported that a male staffer in Cardin’s office had been filming pornographic videos in the Capitol. While the person was not identified, the report references one of the individual staffer’s social media accounts, to which he allegedly posts sexually explicit images and videos.
Maese-Czeropski, 24, has not confirmed that he was one of the two men in the pornographic video, instead taking to social media to largely absolve himself of responsibility for the video and threaten legal action. The post, published to his LinkedIn, was subsequently deleted along with Maese-Czeropski’s account.
After the Capitol Police told the Washington Examiner that it was investigating the matter, Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) predicted the probe would end in some manner of criminal charges.
“I think there’s gonna be an investigation, and I think there will probably be a criminal prosecution is my best guess,” Kennedy said in December.
Jonathan Turley, the George Washington University law professor and constitutional scholar, similarly speculated in a blog post at the time that Maese-Czeropski could face criminal charges for trespassing, indecent exposure, and misuse of public property.
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“Staffers have access into such rooms, but the question is whether this unofficial use would constitute trespass,” Turley wrote. “It also uses an official area for personal purposes, though it is not clear if there were any commercial benefits garnered from the video found on various sites.”
For his part, Cardin said that he was cooperating with Capitol Police’s investigation, though he has not reacted to news of his former staffer not being charged.
