In two Venmo transactions on the night of May 2018, Rep. Matt Gaetz sent $ 900 to his friend, accused sex trafficker Joel Greenberg. The next morning, over the course of eight minutes, Greenberg used the same app to send three young women different sums of money. In total, the transactions amounted to $ 900.
The memory field for the first of Gaetz’s transactions in Greenberg was titled “Test.” In the second, the Florida GOP congressman wrote “hit up ___.” But instead of a blank space, Gaetz wrote a nickname for one of the recipients. (The Daily Beast does not share this nickname because the teenager had only turned 18 less than six months earlier.) When Greenberg made his payments with Venmo to these three young people, he described the money as “Tuition,” “School , ”And“ School ”.
The Daily Beast examined these records as a scandal, rooted in a criminal case against Greenberg, surrounding Gaetz.
Greenberg, a former tax collector in Seminole County, has been charged with 33 offenses, including sex trafficking with a 17-year-old. Court documents say Greenberg was “involved in” sugar father “relationships.” And the New York Times says a Justice Department investigation is studying Gaetz’s involvement in the sex money ring.
Gaetz and Greenberg are connected through Venmo with this 18-year-old woman, who now works in the porn industry, according to a friend of the girl. And on Thursday, Greenberg’s lawyer and prosecutors indicated during a court hearing that they expected Greenberg to reach a court settlement, meaning he plans to cooperate with investigators.
This could be potentially disastrous for Gaetz, as researchers are studying the connections between these two men. And a particularly damaging connection is their financial transactions.
This week, during the reporting of this story, Gaetz’s public list of Venmo transactions disappeared. Greenberg’s Venmo account is currently not publicly accessible. But The Daily Beast managed to get partial records of Greenberg’s past online transactions through a source.
Greenberg and Gaetz are also connected to Venmo with at least one other woman that Greenberg paid with taxpayer funds using a government-issued credit card. Seminole County auditors marked hundreds of these payments as “questioned or unaccounted for” and found a total of more than $ 300,000 in suspicious or unjustified expenses. The Daily Beast was able to obtain the credit card details through a public registration application.
“No one has any idea what he was doing. Zero, “said Daniel J. O’Keefe, an accountant who conducted a forensic audit for the county.” The arrogance of these guys. They just felt like they were above the law. I’ve never seen it so bad. ”.
O’Keefe was particularly baffled by weekend spending, hotels, unspecified high-dollar “consultation” fees, and cash advances Greenberg made to himself and others. The Daily Beast compared Greenberg’s credit card statements and Venmo’s transactions to Gaetz’s travel expenses and travel records — compiled through campaign finance reports, Instagram posts, and Venmo — and found which, in some key places, the two timelines and contact circles overlap.
Gaetz and Greenberg share Venmo connections with at least two women who received payments from Greenberg, and both have professional relationships with each other.
In 2018, Greenberg also paid another woman, Gaetz’s mutual friend, several thousand dollars through her Wells Fargo card, issued by Seminole County, with taxpayer support, according to county financial records obtained by The Daily Beast . The auditors marked the transactions, saying that despite having a contract and an invoice from the company, “they don’t know what it was for.”
Last week, The New York Times reported that the Justice Department was investigating Gaetz for allegedly paying for a 17-year-old to travel with him through state lines and inducing her to have sex, an act that would violate federal child sex trafficking laws. According to reports, the investigation dates back to last summer, when it emerged from the ongoing Greenberg probe. According to the Time, reportedly, the two men had sex with the same 17-year-old and trafficked with her.
The three-year-old Republican has acknowledged the existence of the investigation but denies the allegations. He told The Daily Beast in a March 31 night text message that: “The last time I had sex with a seventeen-year-old boy, I was seventeen.” And in a comment published in the conservative-leaning Washington Examiner last weekend, Gaetz stated that he “never paid women for sex.”
Gaetz has not been charged with a felony and Gaetz’s congressional office declined to comment directly on the story.
Instead, a representative of an external public relations firm, the Logan Circle Group, responded with this statement from Gaetz: “Rumors, gossip, and misrepresentations of other people’s self-service will be addressed in its time for my legal team “.
Erin Elmore, of Logan Circle, pro Trump expert and former contestant The apprentice—Add that a lawyer would “closely monitor your coverage.”
There was also another Logan Circle Group employee in the email: Harlan Hill, who was banned from Fox News after telling now Vice President Kamala Harris “an unbearable lying bitch.”
Greenberg’s defense attorney, Fritz Scheller, also did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But during a press conference after a hearing on the case, Scheller offered that the Florida congressman probably wouldn’t like the news that Greenberg was accepting a plan.
“I’m sure Matt Gaetz doesn’t feel very comfortable today,” Scheller said.
—Updated with Gaetz’s comment.