Former Joel Greenberg associate gets prison time in bribery scheme
Joe Ellicott — a former close friend of disgraced Seminole County Tax Collector Joel Greenberg and a sports radio talk show host known for his on-air bravado — was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison on Tuesday after pleading guilty to paying thousands of dollars on behalf of a company to the former public official as part of a bribery scheme.
In handing down the sentence, U.S. District Judge Gregory Presnell said Ellicott’s actions were part of a larger corruption scheme that harmed people’s trust in government.
“Mr. Ellicott was a part, albeit a small part, of a serious offense that went on for a considerable amount of time,” the judge said. “It really harmed every citizen of Seminole County and beyond.”
According to federal guidelines, Ellicott could have received a prison sentence as long as 33 months. But Presnell lowered the amount after prosecutors said Ellicott had provided key information in their case against Michael Shirley, a campaign consultant who also worked for Greenberg.
In addition to the prison sentence, Ellicott was ordered to pay nearly $115,000 in restitution to the Seminole County Tax Collector’s Office and serve three years of probation.
Mike Gay, an attorney for Seminole County, said the conspiracy represented “a breach of trust” between citizens and government.
“The victim is Seminole County and more importantly, the people of Seminole County,” he said.
Ellicott also pleaded guilty last February to selling more than $5,000 worth of Adderall — an amphetamine used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder — to a buyer through his former business Uncle Joe’s Coins, Currency and Collectibles in Maitland starting in 2016.
In a statement to the court, Ellicott on Tuesday apologized for his role in the bribery scheme and said he accepts “full responsibility for the wrong I have done.”
“I’ve learned that my actions have far-reaching consequences,” Ellicott said. “What I did was wrong. … I realized I failed hundreds of thousands of people of Seminole County.”
U.S. Attorney Amanda Daniels said Ellicott knew that it was unlawful to take part in a plan to bribe a public official.
“This was not a spur-of-the-moment decision,” she said. “The defendant’s actions tear at the heart of the fabric of our government and the trust therein.”
Ellicott, who was paid $95,000 a year by Greenberg’s office, is the first of several former Greenberg associates who have been charged with crimes to face sentencing.
Greenberg — who pleaded guilty in May 2021 to six felony charges, including sex trafficking of a child, identity theft, stalking, wire fraud, creating a fake driver’s license and conspiracy to bribe a public official — is in the Orange County Jail and awaiting his sentencing scheduled for Dec. 1 by Presnell.
Ellicott, who had long known Greenberg and even served as a groomsman for his 2016 wedding, was among several friends and associates that Greenberg hired or awarded lucrative contracts soon after he took public office in January 2017.
Ellicott, for example, was hired to serve as the tax collector’s office’s “supervisor of facilities” or “special projects manager.” However, current and former employees told the Sentinel the titles were bogus, and they never saw Ellicott ever do any work.
Presnell asked Ellicott’s attorney, Robert Mandell, why the former sports radio host would resort to illegally selling portions of his prescription drugs for cash.
“I don’t know why you need to sell Adderall pills if you’re making $95,000,” he said. Mandell did not answer.
According to his plea agreement with federal prosecutors, Ellicott acted as a middleman between an unnamed company’s owner and a “public official” in moving money as part of a coordinated scheme to pay illegal bribes and kickbacks beginning in January 2017 and continuing until some time in 2019.
Greenberg was not named as the public official in court documents or the plea agreement. However, attorneys and the judge in Ellicott’s case discussed him and Shirley by name in court on Tuesday, and details, dates and descriptions closely matched the former tax collector.
Shirley was arrested and charged last month with paying bribes and receiving kickbacks worth thousands of dollars in exchange for his company, Praetorian Integrated Services, receiving favorable treatment from the Tax Collector’s Office at taxpayers’ expense.
Shirley has pleaded not guilty, and his trial in federal court is scheduled for mid-December.
Prosecutors say Ellicott served as a middleman between Praetorian and Greenberg. In one example, the company’s owner withdrew $6,000 in cash from a local bank then called Ellicott for him to collect the money and deliver it to the public official that same day, according to court documents.
”He helped facilitate a $6,000 kickback from Mike Shirley to Joel Greenberg with no personal benefit,” said Mandell in arguing that Ellicott did not deserve prison time. “... He was a minor player in a scheme that involved hundreds of thousands of dollars. ... If we sent him to prison, it would just delay” his ability to pay restitution.
Mandell added that Ellicott was working under orders from his former boss, Greenberg. As part of his sentence, Ellicott also is ordered to forfeit the $6,000.
Ellicott testified in court last February that he knew that the money was a bribe to the public official in exchange for the company receiving work from the public office at an inflated cost and paid with public money, according to the plea agreement.
In a jailhouse interview with state investigators in June, Greenberg described such arrangements as common when he ran the tax office.
“It was the understanding that if somebody was coming on to do work, they were going to be overpaid, and if anything was needed... they would remember that they’re being paid too much to do a job, that they could be paid a lot less,” he said under oath.
Although Ellicott pleaded guilty earlier this year, his attorneys requested four times to delay his sentencing date, the last two because of Ellicott’s declining health “that started to spiral into deteriorating conditions that can be life threatening,” according to court filings.
On Oct. 3, attorney Robert Mandell filed a fifth request to delay Ellicott’s sentencing until mid-December because of surgery his client was scheduled to undergo three days later. He also takes 18 prescription drugs for his various ailments.
Presnell, however, denied the request after reviewing Ellicott’s medical records, which are sealed. He added that he was confident that Ellicott would receive good medical care in prison.
“I have faith in the [Federal] Bureau of Prisons,” he said.
In a letter to Presnell asking for a lenient sentence, Ellicott’s mother, Patricia Ellicott, of Port Orange, said her son “has multiple serious health issues — he is a diabetic, he has heart issues along with high blood pressure, sleep apnea, stomach issues and venous insufficiency in both legs, just to name a few.”
“Your honor, my son made a mistake. He has learned from that mistake that will never be repeated,” she wrote.
Other letters to Presnell from Ellicott’s friends and family members described him as someone who was willing to always help a friend to a fault.
“As both an employee of Joel [Greenberg], as well as a friend, Joe [Ellicott] was asked to do things that he knew were not right but that as a friend and employee he felt obligated to do,” his father, James Ellicott, of Port Orange, wrote. “This, of course, is an excuse and not a reasonable explanation. Joe fully now knows that he should have denied the illegal requests made by his friend and boss... but now it’s too late.”
