Former South Florida tax collector Joel Greenberg, indicted on a slew of charges including sex trafficking of a minor, stalking, bribery and defrauding the COVID-19 Paycheck Protection Program, has agreed to cooperate with the Justice Department. Greenberg was closely associated with Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Florida), who is the subject of a federal probe investigating allegations that the representative had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl. Greenberg has actually been in talks with federal prosecutors since 2020, the New York Times reports.
Greenberg allegedly agreed to cooperate once it became clear that federal prosecutors had conclusive evidence that could convict him. Since his decision to cooperate, Greenberg had several meetings with prosecutors as early as 2020 to determine his trustworthiness. One of the charges against Greenberg is that he falsely accusing a political rival to be a pedophile, so his credibility may damage his testimony.
Gaetz has uniformly denied the accusations made against him, saying in on op-ed to the Washington Examiner, “First, I have never, ever paid for sex. And second, I, as an adult man, have not slept with a 17-year-old.”
In case a plea deal is not reached between Greenberg and the Justice Department, U.S. District Court Judge Gregory Presnell announced that Greenberg’s jury trial would be in either June or July.
