ORLANDO, Fla. – Joel Greenberg, Seminole County’s disgraced former tax collector, has agreed to plead guilty to six federal crimes — including sex trafficking of a child — in a deal that calls for him to cooperate with federal investigators, according to a source with knowledge of the agreement.
The deal, which will be made official during a Monday morning court hearing 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.
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.
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.
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.
Gaetz has vehemently denied any wrongdoing, saying he has never paid for sex or had sex as an adult with someone underage.
The charges to which Greenberg will admit guilt trace the trajectory of the case, which first led to his June 23 arrest for stalking and identity theft.
Greenberg, prosecutors allege, had led a smear campaign against Brian Beute, a teacher who’d filed to run against him for tax collector, by sending letters purportedly from a “concerned student” to Beute’s school falsely alleging he had sexually abused a child. Authorities said they found Greenberg’s fingerprints and DNA on the envelopes.
Meanwhile, bogus Facebook and Twitter accounts set up to tar Beute as a white supremacist traced back to Greenberg’s Heathrow home, which agents raided when he was arrested, saying they found fake IDs he’d used office equipment to manufacture and others he had stolen.
According to a report by the Daily Beast, women said Greenberg was using the IDs — snatched from a basket at his office, where they were deposited after being surrendered by customers — to trade, along with cash, for sex.
The wire fraud charges against Greenberg stem from an alleged embezzlement scheme in which prosecutors say the tax collector used a Bitcoin business he’d established within his public office to launder cryptocurrency for personal profit.
And the bribery charge stemmed from fraudulent loans prosecutors say Greenberg sought in the days before and after his arrest through a government COVID-19 relief program, with the help of a U.S. Small Business Administration loan officer he paid $3,000.
Prosecutors say Greenberg was also involved in “sugar daddy” relationships, in which young women go on dates with wealthy men in exchange for dinners, gifts, trips and allowances. He used websites to recruit women he would later introduce to Gaetz, according to multiple reports.
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.
According to the report, he decided to talk once he realized the case against him was “overwhelming.”
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