Cain Wants House Investigation into Claims
that Ex-Dancer Fires at Influential Colleague
Capitol Inside
July 25, 2025
A Republican state lawmaker called for an investigation into a GOP colleague's personal life on Friday in the midst of claims by a former mistress that he foot the bill for multiple abortions, shared sexual fantasies and tried to hide the relationship from a wife who was aware of it.
State Rep. Briscoe Cain of Deer Park urged the General Investigating Committee in the Texas House to open a probe into allegations that a former stripper who was identified as Alex Grace lodged against State Rep. Giovanni Capriglione of Southlake in a 25-minute video that was posted today on the conservative site Current Revolt.
Cain demanded that Capriglione resign immediately as the representative for House District 98 - a position that he's held for more than a dozen years. Capriglione announced on July 18 that he would seek re-election to the Legislature's lower chamber in 2026. But Capriglione cancelled the campaign abruptly this week in apparent anticipation of the report.
One of the House's most effective members as the first-time chairman of a DOGE Committee that Speaker Dustin Burrows created this year, Capriglione said in a statement that he had no plans to step down until his term ends after the 2026 election cycle.
Capriglione acknowledged that he "selfishly had an affair" at some point "years ago" with any additional details. But Capriglione adamantly denied that he'd paid to have a pregnancy terminated. "I never, nor would I ever, pay for an abortion,” the Tarrant County legislator said.
Capriglione suggested that he'd been the target of a conspiracy by political foes who were unhappy with aggressive positions as the leader of the Delivery of Government Efficiency Committee during the regular session in 2025. "In holding the wealthy, the powerful, the corporate elites, and the Austin insiders to account, I knew I'd face serious blowback," Capriglione said.
"I had no idea the depths to which they would sink, their appalling gutter politics, or the lies and defamation they would spread," Capriglione added.
A law firm warned Current Revolt on Capriglione's behalf this week that it could face a defamation lawsuit if it published the allegations. The lawmaker suggested today that he planned to sue.
"Lying and defaming me, twisting and manipulating old events for political purposes is wrong and I will be pursuing my legal remedies," Capriglione said. "As the Fox-Dominion case demonstrated, media outlets cannot turn over their publications to those making false and defamatory claims and wash their hands of all responsibility. Those who perpetrated these falsehoods must be held accountable."
Grace said she met Capriglione at a club where she worked as a dancer in 2004. She said they developed a relationship that spanned 17 years before drifting apart eventually. She said he cut off all communication in 2019 or 2020 after a phone call in which she expressed her disdain for political position he was taking.
"He is someone that portrays himself to be so anti-abortion, yet he has funded several abortions for his own personal gain,” Grace alleged in the interview with Current Revolt.
Cain was one of the first conservatives to call for the expulsion of Republican colleague Bryan Slaton during the 2023 regular session amid revelations that he'd gone to bed with a 19-year-old staff member. The House voted overwhelming to expel Slaton based mostly on unsubstantiated allegations from a pair of aides for other representatives who'd been allies.
The Slaton case proved to be a warmup for the House vote to impeach Attorney General Ken Paxton several weeks later.
Cain served as the chair of the Elections Committee and the Agriculture & Liivestock Committee in the regular sessions in 2021 and 2023 when Republican Dade Phelan was the speaker of the House. But Cain doesn't carry any weight with current Speaker Dustin Burrows or the members of his team that includes Capriglione as a valuable member.
more to come ...
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