The ex-Florida tax collector whose arrest led to a federal investigation into U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, a former pal, was sentenced Thursday to 11 years in prison for sex trafficking of a minor and different offenses.
Joel Greenberg pleaded guilty final yr to six costs, together with sex trafficking of a minor, identification theft, stalking, wire fraud and conspiracy to bribe a public official, and agreed to cooperate with federal investigators as part of his plea agreement.
Prosecutors mentioned Greenberg paid a minimum of one minor to have sex with him and different males.
“I let you down, and I betrayed your trust,” Greenberg mentioned throughout Thursday’s sentencing listening to, NBC News affiliate WESH reported.
Greenberg additionally apologized to the residents of Seminole County, the place he was tax collector, in addition to his household and a schoolteacher he smeared when the educator determined to run towards him.
His cooperation with federal officers might play a task in an investigation into whether or not Gaetz allegedly sex-trafficked a 17-year-old lady.
Gaetz has denied all allegations of wrongdoing and beforehand mentioned they have been half of an extortion plot. No costs have been introduced against the Republican congressman, who represents a big half of the Florida Panhandle.
Greenberg’s scandal-plagued time period as Seminole County tax collector began in 2017, across the time he and Gaetz (*11*). According to the plea agreement in his federal case, Greenberg met the minor that very same yr on a web site promoting itself as a spot the place ‘“sugar daddies’ might discover ‘sugar infants.'”
Gaetz was not named in Greenberg’s plea agreement.