Republicans worried about Trump-backed lawmaker's extremely sketchy friend

The judgment of President Donald Trump's favored candidate for Florida governor has been called into question.

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) won the president's endorsement for next year's gubernatorial race, but The Daily Beast reported that some Republicans are concerned about his longtime relationship with Larry Wilcoxson, who the congressman has described for years as his "right-hand man."

“The president did not properly vet him,” said one prominent Trump supporter about Donalds, pointing to his close relationship with Wilcoxson.

Wilcoxson was charged with molesting a child while working as a substitute teacher in Indianapolis, but those charges were dropped a year later in 2007 — although he had previously posted online that Black men didn't commit those crimes, adding “with white men, it’s bombs, it’s serial killers, it’s child molestation.”

Authorities alleged he molested the child in his car, according to the Beast.

He told The Daily Beast when reached for comment that he “never harmed anyone.”

Wilcoxson was accused of giving a teenage girl nude photos of himself in the case that resulted in charges, and he reportedly was dismissed as a substitute teacher in 2006 for allegedly exposing himself to a custodian, which he denies.

He was fired as a Hertz rental clerk at an airport in Naples, Florida, in 2013 and later convicted of driving a car for months without permission and sentenced to six moths in prison, although the conviction was vacated in 2022 after it was determined the company had systematically submitted erroneous stolen vehicle reports.

Wilcoxson has also been involved in several violent episodes, including one incident in 2022 when he was recorded on video lunging at a former Florida school board member’s husband during a Republican Executive Committee meeting. He was charged with battery in 2003 and 2013, but he wasn't convicted in either case.

His then-fiancée filed an injunction for protection against Wilcoxson in 2023 after she alleged that he picked her up and threw her onto a kitchen counter, and she said he found her more than 100 miles away after she fled. She claimed he broke into a car and tossed her belongings on the street.

Wilcoxson acknowledged to the Florida Trident that the 2006 allegations involved multiple victims, and Republicans are aghast that he essentially called his accusers liars.

“I’m not gonna open up that can of worms,” he told theTrident. “The law has spoken. It took me to a dark place. In my America, in your America, only a Black man will be guilty and will always be guilty.”

He told the outlet that sexually explicit videos he recorded should have proven he's not sexually attracted to minors.

“I was having a menage à trois with three women at once, and I had the video footage," Wilcoxson told the Trident. "I said [to police], ‘Did you see any little girls in there? I’m a real-life pimp. I’m a lady’s man.’

"They went through all my sexual tapes, all of them. They looked on my computer. I said, ‘Did you see me looking at porn with kids?’ I don’t do that. That’s what white men do. As a criminologist, look at the statistics. With Black men, it’s homicide, it’s robbery … with white men, it’s bombs, it’s serial killers, it’s child molestation.”

Records show. that Donaldson has paid Wilcoxson more than $300,000 in reimbursements and for consulting services since 2021, but the congressman's campaign told The Daily Beast when asked for comment that Wilcoxson will not be a paid consultant for his gubernatorial race.

“Larry doesn’t work for the gubernatorial campaign," the campaign said in a statement, "and this is nothing more than a desperate attack from the radical left.”