While continuing to maintain his innocence, Sen. Jack Latvala, R-Clearwater, submitted his resignation from the Senate after the release of a report finding probable cause that he had sexually harassed a Senate aide.

The special master's report, released Tuesday, spurred leaders including Gov. Rick Scott to call for Latvala to resign. The report also said Latvala might have violated public-corruption laws because of allegations that he told a lobbyist he would support legislation if she engaged in sexual acts.

Latvala said in a letter Wednesday to Senate President Joe Negron that he has “maintained that the charges in the original complaint are fabrications and say that still today.”

The letter, posted online by the Herald/Times Tallahassee bureau, said the resignation is effective Jan. 5, four days before the start of the 2018 legislative session.

Negron, R-Stuart, released a statement saying Latvala made the “right decision.”

Special Master Ronald Swanson, a retired judge, found probable cause to support nearly all of the allegations lodged against Latvala by Senate aide Rachel Perrin Rogers, who accused the Clearwater Republican of making inappropriate comments about her body and groping her on several occasions.

Perrin Rogers filed the complaint last month with the Senate Rules Committee, which then hired Swanson to conduct the investigation and make recommendations.

The Senate should consider “the full range of sanctions,” which include expulsion, Swanson advised.

Perrin Rogers, the chief legislative aide for Senate Majority Leader Wilton Simpson, accused Latvala of engaging in inappropriate acts and comments about her body over the past four years. The Senate aide alleged that Latvala hugged her in an unwelcome manner at least four times during the past two years, “assaulted” her inside an elevator this fall and touched a female lobbyist's breast in April 2017.

The allegation about Latvala's treatment of the female lobbyist was the only one that Swanson said was not supported by testimony from Perrin Rogers and other witnesses over the past few weeks.

“The evidence demonstrated a progression in conduct, over time, from unwelcome comments and nonverbal behavior to unwelcome touching,” the report said.

Swanson also said testimony and text-message exchanges between the senator and an unidentified woman who was a lobbyist appear to indicate that Latvala violated ethics rules and may have violated “laws prohibiting public corruption.”

The lobbyist testified that, between 2015 and 2017, Latvala “touched her and groped her in an unwelcome manner every time she went to his office.”

She also said Latvala told her on multiple occasions that “if she engaged in sexual acts or allowed him to touch her body in a sexual manner he would support particular legislative items for which she was lobbying.”

The woman's testimony is supported by “explicit text messages” sent from the senator to the lobbyist, Swanson wrote in the 35-page report. The most recent text message concerning the possible quid pro quo was sent in February 2016, according to the report. The woman testified that she left her work as a lobbyist “in large part to so [she] would never have to owe [Latvala] anything.”

Swanson recommended the allegations “be immediately referred to law enforcement for further investigation.”

The Senate should also conduct “an internal review of Senate culture,” Swanson advised.

“Interactions between senators, Senate staff and third-party lobbyists, both inside the Capitol and during off-site events and work-related social encounters, should be examined. This may lead to the development of additional guidelines or policy,” he wrote.

And he recommended “increased and routine sexual harassment training” for senators and aides to include “enhanced training on what elected officials must do if a staff member reports harassment by another elected official, staff member or third party.”

The Senate Rules Committee will meet on Jan. 11, two days after the start of the 2018 legislative session, to consider the matter, Negron wrote in a memo to the chamber.

Dara Kam reports for the News Service of Florida.