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Former Joel Greenberg consultant charged with bribing public official

Former Seminole County Joel Greenberg leaves the federal courthouse in downtown Orlando in June 2020 after his first indictment.
Joe Burbank/OSMG
Former Seminole County Joel Greenberg leaves the federal courthouse in downtown Orlando in June 2020 after his first indictment.
Martin Comas, Orlando Sentinel staff portrait in Orlando, Fla., Tuesday, July 19, 2022. (Willie J. Allen Jr./Orlando Sentinel)
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A former Republican operative and campaign consultant who worked for disgraced Seminole County Tax Collector Joel Greenberg has been charged by a federal grand jury with paying bribes and receiving kickbacks worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in exchange for getting favorable treatment from a public office.

Michael Courtney Shirley faces four counts of fraud and a charge of conspiracy to commit fraud by the U.S. Attorney’s Office. He was arrested on Aug. 31 in western Texas, where he is currently living. On Tuesday, he filed a plea of not guilty with the U.S. District Court in Orlando, according to court documents.

In all, Shirley garnered as much as $466,625 from his scheme with the unnamed public office in Seminole County, according to federal prosecutors.

Shirley and his attorney, Warren William Lindsey of Winter Park, did not immediately return calls to comment.

Shirley’s arrest and indictment follow Greenberg’s close friend and former radio talk show host Joe Ellicott pleading guilty in February to paying thousands of dollars in a cash bribe to Greenberg on behalf of an unnamed company. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 11.

Shirley’s indictment does not name Greenberg or Ellicott. But it does refer to a “public official” and a “co-conspirator” whose descriptions and other details closely match Greenberg and Ellicott, along with information in both of their cases.

Shirley’s company, Praetorian Integrated Services was hired by the Seminole County Tax Collector’s Office in early 2017, soon after Greenberg took office, for consulting services on the public office’s budget, strategic planning and providing advice on new technology.

Greenberg dished out about $678,000 to Praetorian, according to an audit report and documents received from public records requests by the Orlando Sentinel. The company was dissolved by the state in 2019 for failure to submit an annual report.

Federal prosecutors charge that Shirley and his company, however, submitted fake invoices that included prices for goods and services “that were inflated to enrich [Shirley] and Praetorian and to defraud the Governmental Agency,” according to the indictment.

As part of their conspiracy, Shirley would withdraw cash from a Central Florida bank, then hand the money to the “co-conspirator” matching Ellicott’s description, who then would turn it over to the public official, according to court records.

Shirley then created false receipts and “a false cover story” that showed the money paid to the public official was for the sale of furniture.

“When, in truth and in fact, as [Shirley and the co-conspirator] then and there well knew, the only purpose of the false cover story was to conceal that the cash was a bribe and kickback to the Public Official in exchange for receiving favorable official action,” according to the indictment.

The public official would then deposit the money into his personal bank account, federal prosecutors said.

The scheme continued through December 2019, according to the indictment.

In Sept. 8, 2017, $12,500 was transferred from a bank account belonging to the public office to Shirley’s account, according to the indictment.

Eighteen days later, $10,325 was moved from the same public office’s bank account to Shirley’s account. This came three days after $6,000 was withdrawn from Shirley’s account.

On Dec. 19, 2017, $22,552 from that public office’s bank account was moved into Shirley’s bank account.

Ellicott’s guilty plea closely matches Shirley’s indictment: A company’s owner withdrew $6,000 from a local bank account, then called Ellicott to have him deliver the cash to a public official as a bribe.

Praetorian also provided the Tax Collector’s Office with new signs, office supplies and shirts emblazoned with the tax collector’s office logo and Greenberg’s name that staff was required to wear, according to documents obtained by the Sentinel.

Greenberg is currently in the Orange County Jail and scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 1. He pleaded guilty in May 2021 to six felony charges, including sex trafficking of a child, identity theft, stalking, wire fraud, creating fake driver’s licenses and conspiracy to bribe a public official.

Greenberg has been working with federal and state investigators on several cases.

Ellicott also agreed to cooperate with other investigations, and his attorney has said that the former radio host hopes to avoid a federal prison sentence.

Besides helping with Greenberg’s political campaign in 2016 against incumbent tax collector Ray Valdes, Shirley also served as a political consultant for candidate Joe Lopez’s candidacy for Orange County sheriff in 2018.

Lopez, who was defeated in the November 2018 general election, has since told the Sentinel he believes Greenberg and his allies, including Shirley, were secretly working to promote another candidate in the race, Darryl Sheppard.

Greenberg during the race had boasted that Sheppard’s victory would give him “control” of the Sheriff’s Office, a claim Sheppard has denied.

mcomas@orlandosentinel.com