Trial for Joel Greenberg’s former consultant set to start Monday
When federal prosecutors first charged former Seminole County Tax Collector Joel Greenberg in mid-2020, it launched a series of other criminal investigations and eventually led to the indictments of half-a-dozen of his friends and business partners — including a political consultant, a sports radio talk show host, a pair of real estate investors, a federal employee, and the owner of a golf business.
On Monday, the trial for Greenberg’s longtime political consultant, Michael Courtney Shirley, will start in a federal courtroom in downtown Orlando. Shirley faces charges that he paid bribes and received kickbacks worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in return for getting favorable treatment from the Tax Collector’s Office under Greenberg’s tenure.
It’s likely that Greenberg, along with former state legislator and lobbyist Chris Dorworth, employees of the Tax Collector’s Office, and his former colleagues serving jail time, will be called to testify during the weeklong trial, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office and defense lawyers. If convicted, Shirley faces up to 20 years in prison based on federal sentencing guidelines.
Greenberg is currently serving an 11-year sentence after pleading guilty to several federal crimes — including trafficking a teenager, stalking a political rival, stealing identities and using public money to pay for sex and cryptocurrency.
“Mr. Greenberg’s plea agreement with the government requires him to testify if called as a witness,” said Orlando attorney Fritz Scheller, who represents Greenberg. “And he intends to honor it.”
Greenberg’s criminal case also led federal investigators to look into his former friend U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Republican from Pensacola, regarding sex trafficking.
This month, the House Ethics Committee re-launched its 2021 investigation into Gaetz that primarily focused on allegations that the congressman may have engaged in sexual misconduct, illicit drug use, accepted a bribe and misused state identification records, according to a CNN report.
This comes after the U.S. Department of Justice informed Gaetz last February that it had decided against pursuing any federal charges against him.
Representatives for Gaetz did not return requests for comment in time. However, he told CNN a week ago that the Congressional investigation is “not something I am worried about. I’m focused on the work.”
Shirley is a former Republican operative and campaign consultant who worked for Greenberg when his company, Praetorian Integrated Services was hired by the Tax Collector’s Office in early 2017 for consulting services on its budget, strategic planning and providing advice on new technology.
Federal prosecutors say that through 2019, Shirley received as much as $466,625 from his scheme with Greenberg’s office. According to court records and a grand jury indictment, Shirley and his company submitted fake invoices that included prices for goods and services that were inflated.
As part of their conspiracy, Shirley withdrew cash from a Central Florida bank, then gave the money to a “co-conspirator” described as Greenberg friend Joseph Ellicott, who would then turn it over to Greenberg, according to court documents.
Shirley — who was arrested nearly a year ago in Austin, Texas, where he resides — faces four counts of fraud and a charge of conspiracy to commit fraud. He has pleaded not guilty.
Shirley was a political consultant and worked on several campaigns in the Central Florida area, including Joe Lopez’s unsuccessful candidacy for Orange County sheriff in 2018. Lopez was defeated by current Sheriff John Mina, and he later told the Orlando Sentinel that Shirley and Greenberg secretly worked to promote opposing candidate Darryl Sheppard in the race.
Two years earlier, Greenberg dished out $6,000 to Shirley’s company Praetorian to help him defeat incumbent tax collector Ray Valdes in the Republican primary.
After he was elected in November 2016, Greenberg doled out nearly $678,000 to Praetorian for various services, including providing shirts and sweaters with the Tax Collector’s Office logo that employees were required to wear.
In 2018, Shirley launched Pinpoint Action, a political consulting firm, in an office building adjacent to a Tax Collector’s Office branch that Greenberg had recently opened on Wekiva Springs Road near Longwood, according to state records. Pinpoint Action was dissolved about a year later.
Shirley’s defense attorneys, Warren Lindsey and Ashley Parker of Maitland, did not respond to requests for comment.
Meanwhile, Ellicott — a former radio host with an on-air swagger — was sentenced last October to 15 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to taking part in the scheme, along with other charges. He is scheduled to be released in October, according to the federal Bureau of Prisons.
Ellicott is listed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office as a witness for the prosecution. He was transferred to the Seminole County Jail in April in preparation for the trial.
Another longtime Greenberg associate expected to testify for the prosecution is Orlando real estate investor Keith Ingersoll.
Ingersoll pleaded guilty last year to coordinating a scheme with his business partner James Adamczyk that bilked an elderly investor out of millions of dollars and nearly his entire life savings.
He was sentenced in February to just over nine years in federal prison. Adamczyk died in October 2022 of cancer. Like Ellicott, Ingersoll also was recently moved to the Seminole County Jail for Shirley’s trial.
Days after Greenberg was first charged on June 23, 2020, and resigned as tax collector, he re-launched a pair of businesses, Greenberg Media Group and DG3 Network, that he dissolved several years earlier, according to state records.
Then, between June and September 2020, Greenberg teamed with businessman Nabil Dajani, who owned The Perfect Golf Grip, to fraudulently obtain hundreds of thousands of dollars in coronavirus relief funds from the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program, according to federal prosecutors.
Dajani and a co-conspirator, who worked with the Small Business Administration, helped Greenberg fraudulently obtain more than $430,000 in loans for his two businesses, according to court records. Greenberg gave one of Dajani’s businesses $16,000 for the deal, prosecutors said in the charging documents.
Dajani pleaded guilty last May to conspiracy, submitting a false claim and an unrelated prostitution charge. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 9 in federal court.
Brevard County resident Teresa McIntyre, who allegedly was involved in the scheme, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the government last year. She was sentenced in February to five years of probation and ordered to pay $587,500 in restitution.
Dorworth is a former state representative and lobbyist for Ballard Partners, and a one-time friend of Greenberg. His firm was hired by Greenberg in 2017 at a cost of $6,250 a month to help urge legislation favorable to tax collectors’ offices statewide. He is listed as a defense witness.
Dorworth sues Joel Greenberg, family, citing ‘massive effort’ to ruin his reputation
Last April, Dorworth filed a civil lawsuit against Greenberg, Greenberg’s family and ex-wife, alleging that the group coordinated an effort to smear his reputation.
Others who may be called to testify include Mike McLean, a former Seminole commissioner who worked as the office’s chief administrator; and Richard Sierra, Greenberg’s former uncle, who worked as the office’s in-house attorney. Sierra warned Greenberg in early 2019 that federal authorities were looking into the Tax Collector’s Office.
Monday’s court proceedings are scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. at the federal criminal courthouse, 401 W. Central Blvd., in downtown Orlando.
