Jacob Ogles
Federal investigators are focusing on women recruited online for sex by Joel Greenberg, sources tell The New York Times. A new report suggests the women were paid cash and also had sex with Rep. Matt Gaetz.
It’s the latest chapter in a saga swirling around the former Seminole County Tax Collector since last year. This week, the investigation gained national prominence for implicating Gaetz in a sex trafficking investigation and accusations he traveled with and had sex with a 17-year-old girl.
Gaetz has denied ever paying a woman for sex.
The report suggests Greenberg, who remains the subject of a growing federal investigation, recruited multiple women using online apps connecting individuals who go on dates in exchange for high-priced gifts and travel allowances.
Sources told the Times that Greenberg introduced the women to Gaetz, a political ally. One woman has told investigators she had sex with Greenberg, Gaetz and one other as-yet-unidentified associate in Florida GOP politics, one source said.
Greenberg in August was indicted on a charge of sex trafficking and engaging in a commercial sex act with a subject under the age of 18. The Times story published Friday says that subject is the same 17-year-old at the center of the Gaetz story published two days prior.
Other men connected to Gaetz and Greenberg may yet be drawn into the investigation, two sources said.
Receipts were shown to the Times for payments made through Cash App and Apple Pay with money paid both by Gaetz and Greenberg to one woman, with more showing Greenberg making payments to another woman.
One of the women later told friends she received money for having sex with two men, according to sources privy to conversations. The article also details allegations Gaetz took ecstasy before having sex in at least one encounter.
The report says Gaetz asked women to find others willing to have sex with him and his friends, attributing two sources familiar with those conversations, and that he encouraged the women if asked about the relationship to say he paid for dinner and hotel rooms as part of dates.
Gaetz in an interview with Fox News this week defended himself from accusations in part by saying he had been generous in the past with ex-girlfriends.
