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Orlando Sentinel
Orlando Sentinel
National
Monivette Cordeiro, Jeff Weiner, Jason Garcia, Martin E. Comas and Annie Martin

Ex-Florida tax collector Joel Greenberg to plead guilty to 6 counts, cooperate with federal investigators in plea agreement

ORLANDO, Fla. — Days before he was first arrested for stalking a political rival, Joel Greenberg was in the midst of preparing a fraudulent application for a COVID-19 relief loan, with the help of a government employee he’d later bribe. If there was any doubt of his untoward intentions for the aid funds, Greenberg erased it with a text message.

“How quickly can I blow it all on p-ssy?” he asked.

Greenberg, Seminole County’s disgraced former tax collector, will plead guilty to six federal crimes — including sex trafficking of a child — in a deal that calls for him to cooperate with federal investigators in the “investigation and prosecution of other persons,” according to an agreement released Friday.

The 86-page document laid bare the remarkable brazenness of Greenberg’s behavior. On his first day in elected office, he sought to cover up a federal crime he’d committed years earlier. He spent hundreds of thousands of tax office dollars on Bitcoin — then borrowed from family to pay it back. He spent thousands on more drugs and sex — including with a 17-year-old girl.

In addition to trafficking, Greenberg will plead to charges of identity theft, stalking, wire fraud and conspiracy to bribe a public official. Prior to striking a deal, he was facing 33 federal charges. Prosecutors will drop the other 27 counts filed against him.

The charges carry at least 12 years in federal prison and Greenberg will be considered a sex offender for the rest of his life.

The deal, which will be made official during a Monday morning court hearing that Greenberg is required to attend, marks a turning point in the sprawling federal investigation that has roiled Florida politics and reportedly taken aim at Greenberg’s friend and ally U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz.

Gaetz, R-Fla., who was not named in the document released Friday, has vehemently denied any wrongdoing.

Greenberg admitted to paying more than $70,000 over two years to women for sex, many of whom he met through a website connecting young women, known as “sugar babies,” with older men, called “sugar daddies.”

According to the plea agreement:

Greenberg used at least four accounts to pay the women for sex — including a Tax Collector’s Office American Express card — with the payments typically ranging between $200 and $1,000 and disguised as payments for expenses such as “school,” “food,” and “ice cream.”

One person Greenberg paid for sex was 17 years old, though Greenberg said she’d claimed to be 18 years old when he first found her through the “sugar babies” website. Greenberg said he initially contacted the minor through a Snapchat account. He paid her $400 for an initial meeting on his boat, in which no sex occurred, and then another $400 to meet at an area hotel where they had sex.

After that, Greenberg admitted that he would invite the minor — often with others — to meet and have sex at hotels around Central Florida. He would often also supply ecstasy to attendees — including the minor — and would sometimes pay extra to those who would take the drug.

Greenberg had sex at least seven times with the minor while she was still underage — and also introduced her to adult men who had sex with her, too, though the men aren’t identified in the plea agreement.

Greenberg admitted to frequently — and illegally — using his access to the state’s driver’s license system to “investigate” his sexual partners. And on the afternoon of Sept. 4, 2017, Greenberg ran a search on the minor “because he had reason to believe that the minor was under the age of 18.”

According to witnesses, Greenberg would also offer women he paid for commercial sex acts the use of driver’s licenses that he took from the Tax Collector’s Office.

In addition, after he was first indicted in June 2020 and Greenberg learned that authorities were investigating him for having sex with a minor, Greenberg reached out to her, directly and through a friend, to ask her to lie to investigators about why he’d initially looked up her information in the driver’s license database.

“Greenberg also asked the minor for help in making sure that their stories would line up, because he knew that his commercial sex acts with her were illegal,” according to the agreement.

The agreement also reveals the extent to which Greenberg mixed his office’s funds with his personal finances, from cashing tax office checks for personal use to an elaborate scheme involving the buying and selling of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

According to the agreement:

On Sept. 20, 2017, Greenberg opened an account in the name of “Seminole County Tax Collector” at Fifth Third Bank, and hid its existence from the chief financial officer for the Tax Collector’s Office.

He then began making small deposits of office resources into the account. For instance, he sold a vehicle owned by the office for $27,000, then deposited the check from that sale at Fifth Third.

That December, he grew bolder, asking the CFO in an email “(H)ow much do we have that can be used for a 60-90 day investment fund (for the Tax Collector’s Office)? What’s the most you can do?” The CFO told him $100,000 was the maximum; Greenberg deposited the check at Fifth Third.

Greenberg moved the money into his personal bank account, then into an account in his name with a cryptocurrency trading service. He spent almost all of the $100,000 within five hours on more than 15 cryptocurrency trades.

Meanwhile, the money missing from the tax office was causing issues.

“We are going to need additional funds before the end of the month to get all expenses paid,” the CFO said in an email to Greenberg during this period.

In order to refund the tax office, Greenberg borrowed $90,000 from a family member, then later deposited a cashier’s check for $100,000, which he marked as “Returned Investment funds,” into an office-owned account.

About a year later, authorities say he pulled a similar scam involving twice as much money.

A cryptocurrency splurge ensued, followed by yet another entreaty for help from family. Greenberg told a relative in January 2019 that he needed $200,000, explaining he was in “big trouble” for mixing public money with his own. The relative obliged.

But Greenberg didn’t refund his office — he bought more cryptocurrency for himself.

Then, on April 23, 2019, federal agents served a subpoena on the Tax Collector’s Office and Greenberg learned he was under investigation. He went back to the same family member who had given him $200,000 months earlier — asking for the same amount, again.

“When asked what had happened with the other money, Greenberg explained that he had used it to purchase cryptocurrency for himself,” the agreement adds. “Greenberg stated that he would go to jail if he did not pay the $200,000 back to the Tax Collector’s Office.”

The document also sheds new light on Greenberg’s forays into creating fake IDs for himself, if not his motivations for doing so.

According to the agreement:

The earliest offense Greenberg is accused of long predates his time in elected office. The victim, identified as R.Z., is someone from whom Greenberg purchased a boat in 2015.

That November, Greenberg used R.Z’s personal information that he obtained from the transaction to order a replacement driver’s license from the state with R.Z.’s personal information. That license was mailed to a post office box in Longwood that Greenberg had set up.

Then, on Jan. 3, 2017 — the day he took office as tax collector — Greenberg changed the mailing address for R.Z. from the Longwood post office address back to R.Z’s actual residence.

“R.Z. never authorized Greenberg to obtain a replacement driver’s license using his identity, and R.Z. never knew what Greenberg had done,” the agreement states.

As tax collector in November 2017, Greenberg would then use R.Z.’s personal information from the DAVID system to create a new driver’s license with R.Z.’s name but with Greenberg’s photograph. Greenberg also used public money from the Tax Collector’s Office to purchase a badge-making machine online, which he used to make fake IDs.

When federal agents raided Greenberg’s Heathrow home on June 23, they found the fake driver’s license with R.Z.’s personal information and Greenberg’s photograph in his wallet, according to the plea agreement.

But it wasn’t the only time Greenberg used his office to create fake IDs for himself.

In September 2018, a man identified as E.J.C.C. walked into a Tax Collector’s Office to turn in his old driver’s license from Puerto Rico and obtain a new Florida driver’s license.

However, Greenberg grabbed E.J.C.C.’s old Puerto Rico license from the basket of discarded IDs before it could be shredded. He used the badge-making machine to produce a fake Puerto Rico driver’s license with E.J.C.C.’s personal information but with Greenberg’s photo, according to the plea agreement.

Federal agents also found that fake license with E.J.C.C.’s information during their raid at Greenberg’s home last June.

Greenberg also admitted to claiming $432,700 in federal loans intended to help small businesses weather the pandemic, with the help of a Small Business Administration employee and one of Greenberg’s friends.

The scheme was not Greenberg’s idea, the plea notes, but “he agreed to participate in it with knowledge of its illegality.” On June 19, four days before Greenberg was arrested, a friend texted him, saying he had an “easy” and “quick” way for him to receive a loan of up to $160,000 and referred Greenberg to the SBA employee. Neither the friend nor the employee are named in the plea.

Greenberg texted the SBA employee the same day.

On June 24, the day after Greenberg’s arrest, the SBA officer emailed a loan agreement to him for $133,000 and he executed it. That agreement required Greenberg to say he would use the loan “as working capital solely to alleviate economic injury caused by disaster occurring during the month of January 31, and continuing thereafter” and that he had not been arrested or convicted on felony charges since applying for the money.

The plea deal notes the SBA employee was a “willing and knowledgeable” participant in the fraud. Greenberg texted the employee at the end of June, telling her that the state had approved his applications to reinstate the two defunct businesses, but would charge a fee of $1,000 for each entity.

“Before I pay, are you confident these funding request will go through,” Greenberg texted the employee, who responded, “Yes it will.”

Greenberg received $432,700 in fraudulent loans, paid in three installments in late June and July. He shared some of the proceeds from the fraud with his conspirators, giving $16,000 to his friend, and $3,000 to the SBA employee.

Gaetz’s name does not appear in Greenberg’s plea deal, though it’s been widely reported that the former tax collector’s cooperation was sought in order for federal authorities to advance their probe of the Florida congressman.

According to reports, investigators are seeking to determine whether Gaetz had sex with the same 17-year-old Greenberg was accused of trafficking, paid for sex and travel with escorts or traded political favors in medical marijuana legislation for paid sex and other gifts.

Gaetz has said he has never paid for sex or had sex as an adult with someone underage.

If he is found to have had solicited sex with a minor, Gaetz could be prosecuted under the same trafficking law as Greenberg. He also could be charged under the Mann Act, which bans bringing anyone across state or international lines for prostitution, legal experts said.

By the time it was revealed in court last month that Greenberg planned to take a plea deal, he had already met with federal investigators several times and told them about having given women cash and gifts in exchange for sex with himself and Gaetz, according to The New York Times.

Under the terms of his deal, Greenberg will be required to cooperate fully with the government. If his cooperation is of “substantial assistance” to prosecutors, they will recommend a lower prison sentence.

He must also pay restitution to several people, including the minor and entities like the Seminole County Tax Collector’s Office and the SBA.

Prosecutors agreed to not charge Greenberg with committing any other federal criminal offense.

But if he knowingly provides incomplete or untruthful testimony, falsely implicates or incriminates someone else or fails to cooperate, Greenberg can be prosecuted for perjury or obstruction of justice, according to the agreement. Prosecutors can also refile the dismissed charges against him.

The agreement said Greenberg will also forfeit at least $654,780 in assets obtained through his offenses.

The plea agreement still must be approved by the judge.

Patrick Cotter, a Chicago defense attorney and former federal prosecutor, says the plea agreement sends a message from prosecutors to other people who committed crimes with Greenberg.

“The message is, ‘The game is up,’” he said. “‘… Everything you did with Mr. Greenberg, we now know about. And Mr. Greenberg is willing to go into the courtroom, put his hand down on a Bible, take deals and testify as to what you guys did.’”

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