Name: As Joel Greenberg’s star rose, Matt Gaetz became a vocal ally. Now sex trafficking probes take aim at both
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As Joel Greenberg’s star rose, Matt Gaetz became a vocal ally. Now sex trafficking probes take aim at both

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AdvertisementBy Orlando SentinelApr 02, 2021 at 12:26 pmJoel Greenberg’s political career looked promising just over a year ago: He was set to run for re-election as Seminole County’s tax collector — pledging nearly half a million dollars of his Bitcoin investments into his campaign — and was even contemplating a run for Congress against U.S. Rep. Stephanie Murphy.Having won elected office at just 31 years old in 2016, he had since expressed boredom with the job but seemed to relish his connections with people of wealth and influence, including developer and former state legislator Chris Dorworth.AdvertisementBut few were as visible a friend or as vocal an advocate for Greenberg — over four years of rolling controversies that earned him distinction as an iconoclast on the political right, but infamy among many on the left and center — as his friend from the Panhandle with a similar reputation, U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz.During an interview on WFLA News Radio in June 2017, Gaetz said Greenberg should run for Congress against Murphy. By then, both Greenberg and Murphy had been in office for just six months.Advertisement“Joel Greenberg has gone into the Seminole County Tax Collector’s Office. He’s taken it by storm,” Gaetz said. “And he’s been a disruptor, … And if you look at what people want in the country right now, they want that disruptor. And they want someone who is not going to adhere to the dogma that has strangled progress in Washington DC for a generation.”Over the years that followed, Greenberg and Gaetz, a fellow Republican who represents Fort Walton Beach, were often spotted having dinner and drinks together at Seminole restaurants and bars. Former employees of the Tax Collector’s Office said Greenberg often bragged how Gaetz visited him at his Heathrow home.Greenberg also brought Gaetz into the Tax Collector’s administrative office in Lake Mary in late 2017 or early 2018, showing him around and introducing him to various employees, according to Alan Byrd, a spokesman for the office.When Greenberg launched his re-election bid, Gaetz was the first person to donate, chipping in the personal maximum of $1,000 on June 9.Two weeks later, Greenberg stood shackled in a federal courtroom in downtown Orlando, accused of stalking an election rival and identity theft. The federal case against Greenberg, who resigned from office the day after his initial arrest, has since ballooned.And this week, that case, too, linked Greenberg to Gaetz, when the New York Times reported that the Panhandle congressman was being investigated for potential sex trafficking offenses — a probe that branched off from the Greenberg investigation.The Times reported Thursday that the Justice Department probe is focused on the two men’s involvement with women they allegedly recruited online and paid for sex. The inquiry is also examining whether Gaetz victimized the same 17-year-old girl who Greenberg is accused of trafficking, according to the report.Gaetz has not been charged with a crime and has denied all wrongdoing, claiming that the existence of the investigation into him was leaked to derail a separate investigation into a blackmail scheme targeting his family, with which they had been cooperating.AdvertisementToday, Greenberg sits in the Orange County Jail facing 33 federal charges, including stalking, identity theft, wire fraud, bribery, theft of government property, conspiracy to bribe a public official, creating fake IDs and sex trafficking of a minor.Talking to an Orlando Sentinel reporter last fall, by then already facing charges that could cost his freedom for decades, he lamented the loss of his friends.“No one wants to talk to me anymore,” he said, with his voice breaking. “You have no idea what I’ve been through, and what I’m going through now.”Greenberg was elected in 2016 as a newcomer to Seminole County’s political scene after defeating longtime incumbent Tax Collector Ray Valdes in the Republican primary then beating a write-in opponent in the general.Largely unknown at the time, but capable of self-funding his campaign as the scion of a dental empire owned by his father, Greenberg railed against Valdes for buying and selling tax-delinquent properties that are handled by the Tax Collector’s Office.Soon after taking office in January 2017, Greenberg re-designed and modernized the Tax Collector’s website and opened a new branch office in Winter Springs for rural residents in east Seminole.AdvertisementBut his term was quickly marred by controversies, including , , , , , and .Amid all that, within a couple of years of taking office, Greenberg told a Sentinel reporter that he was bored with the office because it involved too much redundancy and offered little opportunity to be creative or break out into new business ventures. State Rep. Anna Eskamani, an Orlando Democrat, also recalled Greenberg telling her he was bored with the job.Greenberg then became active in Seminole politics.In December 2017, he joined a group of Seminole residents pushing for a referendum to elect a county-wide mayor, similar to the system in Orange County. The group also wanted county commission races to be non-partisan, represent individual districts rather than countywide, and be limited to two-year terms. The plan eventually fizzled out.Greenberg often mentioned to local leaders how his family was wealthy and powerful. His father, Andrew Greenberg, started Greenberg Dental in the 1980s, which now has 92 offices across Florida. However, there is no record of his family ever being involved in local politics.According to state financial disclosure forms required from all elected officials, Joel Greenberg listed his worth at the end of 2019 at nearly $5.9 million. That included $5.5 million worth of stock in his family’s business AWG Inc., $85,500 in jewelry and $276,000 in bank accounts.AdvertisementGreenberg also soon began hob-knobbing with well-connected people — often with Gaetz at his side.An image he posted on Twitter on July 8, 2017, showed Greenberg and Gaetz standing next to Roger Stone, the infamous Trump and Nixon associate and provocateur.Madison was sleepy but was a trooper. Thank you for being such great hosts. — Joel Greenberg (@JoelGreenbergTC)A , shot at a get-together at Dorworth’s Heathrow home, shows Greenberg alongside Gaetz and John Morgan, the wealthy attorney and medical marijuana advocate, as they to end a ban on smokable marijuana.That June, Greenberg’s wife, Abby Greenberg, posted a slew of photos on Facebook featuring her husband, Dorworth, his wife and Gaetz at various locations in Washington, D.C., including with the first couple at the White House and touring the Capitol Dome.In one photo, Gaetz beamed in sunglasses as he posed in front of Donald and Melania Trump, holding Greenberg’s daughter in his arms.In a text message to a Sentinel reporter last July, Dorworth declined to discuss his relationship with Greenberg, saying only, “Joel is a friend of mine.” Dorworth, a partner with the lobbying firm Ballard Partners, did not respond to a text message this week asking if he is still friends with Greenberg.AdvertisementEskamani, who had previously feuded with Greenberg over his anti-Muslim social media comments, recalled receiving a voice mail from Greenberg on July 4, 2019. In the recording, Greenberg can be heard saying: “My dear, Anna, this is your favorite tax collector. I’m up in the Panhandle with your favorite U.S. congressman, Mr. Gaetz.”Gaetz then adds : “Hi Anna, we think you’re the future of the Democratic Party in Florida.” Eskamani did not call Greenberg back.“It was super weird,” she said, adding that most Trump-aligned officials that day were attending Trump’s “Salute to America” celebration at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., while Gaetz was hanging out with Greenberg in Florida.In the latest and fourth indictment filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office this week, prosecutors say that Greenberg — just days after he was arrested on the initial stalking charges, which was quickly followed by his resignation from public office — restarted two of his former companies and used them to obtain more than $432,000 in fraudulent loans meant to help small businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown.Greenberg also is accused of diverting more than $400,000 in public money from the Tax Collector’s Office into a private bank account and into a business he set up to buy and sell cryptocurrencies and machines used to mine cryptocurrencies. An arraignment is scheduled for April 9.Greenberg also faces charges from three previous grand jury indictments that he stalked a political opponent, illegally used a state database and old driver’s licenses to create fake IDs and sex-trafficked a minor. He has pleaded not guilty to those 14 previous charges.AdvertisementHis trial is scheduled for mid-June in federal court in downtown Orlando. However, that could be delayed. If convicted on all counts, he could likely face decades in federal prison.Twice-weeklyA lunch-hour look at what's trending in Florida politics. &gt; It appears the sex trafficking element of the Greenberg investigation is what led authorities to take aim at Gaetz.Greenberg is charged by the U.S. Attorney’s Office with using a confidential state database to produce false identification that facilitated his sex trafficking of a girl between the ages of 14 and 17.The same girl is the potential victim in the ongoing sex trafficking probe targeting Gaetz, the New York Times reported.Also linked to that investigation is an after-hours visit to the tax collector’s office. A source familiar with office operations that Gaetz and Greenberg were recorded by surveillance cameras entering the closed office together on a weekend night in April 2018.During the visit, Greenberg was videotaped going through baskets where the office deposited discarded driver’s licenses that citizens turned in for disposal, the source said. Federal authorities have said Greenberg used surrendered licenses to create fake IDs.AdvertisementStaff writer Jason Garcia contributed to this report.mcomas@orlandosentinel.com Advertisement

AdvertisementBy Orlando SentinelApr 02, 2021 at 12:26 pmJoel Greenberg’s political career looked promising just over a year ago: He was set to run for re-election as Seminole County’s tax collector — pledging nearly half a million dollars of his Bitcoin investments into his campaign — and was even contemplating a run for Congress against U.S. Rep. Stephanie Murphy.Having won elected office at just 31 years old in 2016, he had since expressed boredom with the job but seemed to relish his connections with people of wealth and influence, including developer and former state legislator Chris...

As Joel Greenberg’s star rose, Matt Gaetz became a vocal ally. Now sex trafficking probes take aim at both

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