- A federal judge sentenced former Florida tax official Joel Greenberg to 11 years in prison.
- Greenberg was a longtime associate of Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz before he struck a plea deal last year.
A federal judge on Thursday sentenced the former Florida tax official Joel Greenberg to 11 years in prison.
Greenberg formally pleaded guilty to six felony counts last year and agreed to cooperate with the US government in the investigation and potential prosecution of others.
He pleaded guilty to one count of carrying out the sex trafficking of a child, one count of producing a false identification document, one count of aggravated identity theft, one count of wire fraud, one count of stalking, and one count of conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States.
Ahead of his Greenberg's sentencing Thursday, his lawyer, Fritz Scheller, said he had cooperated with investigations into 24 people. Five have been charged, and two more will be indicted in the coming weeks, Scheller said.
Prosecutors requested a reduced sentence for Greenberg, citing his cooperation with the government. He faced anywhere from 9.25 to 11 years in prison, according to federal sentencing guidelines, but US District Judge Gregory Presnell indicated Wednesday that he didn't think that sentence was enough, saying Greenberg's case had "no precedent."
Before striking a plea deal, Greenberg was a close associate of Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz. Gaetz's name was not mentioned in Greenberg's plea agreement, but it was previously reported that the Republican congressman was a target of the same criminal investigation that ensnared Greenberg.
Gaetz has not been indicted, and The Washington Post reported in September that prosecutors would not recommend charges against the lawmaker. Justice Department officials typically take the advice of career prosecutors but haven't made a final decision on the matter yet. Gaetz has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
Greenberg's plea deal said he conducted 150 financial transactions totaling $70,000 between December 2016 and December 2018 to pay women for "commercial sex acts." He disguised the transactions by giving them labels like "food," "ice cream," and "school," the document said.
One of the women Greenberg had sex with multiple times was 17 years old at the time and represented herself as an adult on the "sugar baby" website they connected on. The plea deal said that in addition to his own interactions with the minor, Greenberg also put her in contact with others, though the document didn't say who those people were.
The New York Times, which broke the news last year of the Justice Department's investigation into Gaetz, said prosecutors suspected the Florida lawmaker of having had sex with a woman who was 17 years old at the time of their alleged encounters in 2019. The sex-trafficking count against Greenberg involved the same girl.
The Times also reported that Greenberg gave investigators information about an "array of topics" since he began cooperating in 2020, including telling them that he and Gaetz had interactions with women who were given cash and gifts in exchange for sex.
According to The Daily Beast, Greenberg also said in a letter that Gaetz paid for sex with a minor. Greenberg is said to have sent the letter to the longtime GOP strategist Roger Stone in the final months of Donald Trump's presidency in a last-ditch bid to obtain a pardon.
Gaetz has denied wrongdoing and said last year that the allegations were part of an "organized criminal extortion" scheme against him. The Florida businessman Stephen Alford was sentenced to five years in prison in August after pleading guilty to attempting to extort Gaetz and his father for $25 million.
"Those who told lies about Congressman Matt Gaetz are going to prison, and Congressman Matt Gaetz is going back to Congress to continue fighting for America," a spokesperson for Gaetz's office previously told Insider.