A Dallas philanthropist has sued former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz and sitting Texas Rep. Lance Gooden, accusing them of turning a March television appearance into a public attack that branded him a criminal and fraudster. The complaint says the broadcast tied Mark Patrick to alleged misuse of $270 million in charitable assets and damaged both his reputation and his organization’s mission.
The civil suit, filed this week in federal court in Dallas County, centers on an episode of The Matt Gaetz Show that aired on One America News Network. According to the Dallas Observer, Patrick says Gaetz accused him of involvement in “perhaps the largest financial charity fraud in the history of this country,” while Gooden appeared in a prerecorded segment discussing the dispute.
One detail worth cleaning up: Gaetz is not a Texas congressman. House Clerk records show he resigned from Florida’s 1st District on November 13, 2024, and declined to take his seat in the 119th Congress; Gooden’s official biography identifies him as the representative for Texas’ 5th District, which includes parts of Dallas County.
The underlying fight involves a Cayman Islands charitable foundation and a restructuring of funds intended to benefit organizations including the DFW Charitable Foundation. Patrick argued the restructuring protected charitable assets from a third party, and the lawsuit says a Grand Court of the Cayman Islands ruling issued before the broadcast found no serious issue to be tried concerning the maneuver.
Patrick further alleges that the program used his photographs and identified him as a Dallas resident, after which he initiated a complaint with local law enforcement over alleged tampering with his vehicle. The suit says the broadcast caused “shame, embarrassment, humiliation” and interfered with his organization’s charitable work, according to the Dallas Observer.
Gooden Faces A Separate Ethics Review
The lawsuit arrives days after the U.S. House Ethics Committee announced a separate investigation into Gooden. The Texas Tribune reported that the committee did not disclose the subject of the review, while its leaders stressed that an investigation does not itself indicate a rules violation. Gooden said the matter involves what he called “bogus spending allegations.”
Speech Defenses Could Shape The Case
The defamation case is only at the allegation stage, and no court has ruled that the broadcast was defamatory. If Texas law governs the claims, the state’s Citizens Participation Act allows defendants to seek early dismissal of lawsuits based on speech about a matter of public concern, while requiring a plaintiff to establish a prima facie case with clear and specific evidence, under Texas law.
That potential procedural fight would not decide whether Patrick’s financial conduct was improper or whether Gaetz and Gooden’s descriptions were accurate. It would instead determine whether the lawsuit can proceed far enough for the parties to litigate the broadcast, its sourcing, and the harm Patrick says it caused.
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