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Matt Gaetz has denied his reported sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl, but apparently he doesn’t need to confess to anything because his confidant in illicit activities may have spilled the beans for him. Joel Greenberg, the disgraced former Orlando, Florida-area tax collector whose shady behavior got Gaetz embroiled in a federal investigation for a variety of alleged activities, apparently confessed to having sex with an underage girl and alleged that Gaetz did the same in a lengthy confession letter while trying to seek a pardon from the Trump White House.
According to a bombshell report from The Daily Beast, Gaetz’s friend and apparent co-conspirator actually wrote the confession letter that revealed details of criminal activities in an effort to get Trump lackey Roger Stone to help him secure a pardon before Trump left office.
“On more than one occasion, this individual was involved in sexual activities with several of the other girls, the congressman from Florida’s 1st Congressional District and myself,” Greenberg wrote in reference to the 17-year-old. “From time to time, gas money or gifts, rent or partial tuition payments were made to several of these girls, including the individual who was not yet 18. I did see the acts occur firsthand and Venmo transactions, Cash App or other payments were made to these girls on behalf of the Congressman.”
The letter, which The Daily Beast recently obtained, was written after Greenberg asked Roger Stone to help him secure a pardon from then-President Donald Trump.
The details of the letter are nearly as bizarre as the circumstances for which it was created and, later, found. Stone, who isn’t in jail because he got a pardon from Trump, was apparently communicating with Greenberg through an encrypted messaging app to negotiate the deal. But Greenberg reportedly took screenshots of those otherwise untraceable messages, and somehow did not get rid of drafts of the letter.
As part of the effort to obtain a pardon, Greenberg wrote multiple drafts of his confession letter. The Daily Beast obtained two typed versions and an earlier handwritten one. Certified forensic document examiner and handwriting expert Wendy Carlson compared the letter to writing samples obtained through two public records requests. She said it was her professional expert opinion that the person who authored a 2019 financial disclosure for Joel Greenberg, as well as Greenberg’s 2020 board of elections form, was the same as the author of the letter.
“The person who authored the forms has been identified as the person who authored the letter,” Carlson said.
Stone also reportedly denied to The Daily Beast that he asked for payment for his help, but their reporting clearly shows otherwise.
“I hope you are prepared to wire me $250,000 because I am feeling confident,” Stone apparently wrote to Greenberg on Jan. 13, a week after the riot at the US Capitol and days before Trump’s final flurry of pardons that did not include either Greenberg or Gaetz.
The full report had plenty of details about both the letter and communications between Stone and Greenberg for his ill-fated attempt to get a pardon. That letter also apparently included what happened when Greenberg found out the woman they both were having a sexual relationship was not of legal age.
“Immediately I called the congressman and warned him to stay clear of this person and informed him she was underage,” Greenberg wrote. “He was equally shocked and disturbed by this revelation.”
Greenberg continued in the handwritten draft that he “confronted” the then-17-year-old and explained to her “how serious of a situation this was, how many people she put in danger.”
“She apologized and recognized that by lying about her age, she endangered many people,” he continued. “There was no further contact with this individual until after her 18th birthday.”
It’s a bizarre string of new details in the case to say the least, and another connection between Gaetz and his friend Greenberg and the weird orbit of the Trump White House. Though neither Gaetz or Greenberg got a pardon out of the mess, their attempts to do so may be a big reason the public finds out more concrete details of the federal investigation into Gaetz and the crimes that Greenberg has apparently admitted to committing with his friend.
Oh, did we mention that Greenberg is reportedly snitching to the Feds on Gaetz in exchange for leniency? Yes, Matt Gaetz appears to be very, very screwed.
[via The Daily Beast]
