The Terrible Tax Man

What do you call a tax collector that spends money on himself?

A bad tax man. You have to see this episode.

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Go to www.fridayfraudster.com

Your Friday Fraudster hosts are passionate about ethics, fraud and good business practices.

Kelly is known as the Pink Collar Crime guru. If there is fraud, she can find it.

Jo is the Ethics Expert. She can identify and correct those stick organizational ethical issues.

Robert is a process. He looks at the controls to determine if you are performing actions to get your desired results.

Join Kelly Paxton, Jo Erven and Robert Berry on this weeks episode of the Friday Fraudster.

Find Kelly at https://kellypaxton.com/

Find Jo at https://www.auditconsultingeducation.com

Find Robert at www.thatauditguy.com

Transcript

0:01

Alright guys, welcome to another episode of the Friday fraudsters actually on Friday, this week, Kelly

0:14

noticed something strange today.

0:18

You noticed something strange today?

0:20

Yeah, it's just two of us. We're very sad. It's just two of us today. But tell you that Joe is on the plane for the National Speakers Association influence conference where we met two years ago in person. And what I love about this I couldn't go this year is that we love to work on speaking. Like, because if you are a subject matter expert, but you aren't a great speaker, you're gonna lose your audience. So, kudos to Jo. She's gonna come back next week, and she's gonna have all sorts of stuff.

0:56

Yeah, she is going to surprise us with her newfound wisdom and see, but you know what, here's what this week actually means for you, though, Kelly. Since Joe is missing, it's almost like 50% of our team is missing. I know what you're thinking there's three of us, right? So that should be 1/3. But you know, you and Joe do all the work and I just kind of show up. So I'm so sorry that you guys have to put up with just little old me today with Kelly. No, Joe. We're no seriously guys. You all know what we like to do. As you enter the room with us. Please drop that emoji into the chat. that signifies the mood that you're in right now because we care about you and we want to know that everyone is doing. Okay. So if you can drop those emojis into the chat, I would greatly appreciate it and mark is here. Mark says Good afternoon everyone. Trust that you are having a good one. Mark. I'm having a scrump delicious scrump delicious day. Heather is here and she's smiling with some coffee Kelly. Kelly, Heather is that coffee or cappuccino? Mark says stop self deprecating. Well, mark it works sometimes.

2:19

I want to give a LinkedIn tip to everyone. What is the link to everyone?

2:26

Okay, you guys. So if we aren't connected, or you see someone in the chat that you're not connected with, connect, send Hey, saw you on Friday fraudster because we want to do connections that are personal. And you remember remember why you connected with them? Um, but if you see someone in the chat and you're not connected to them, you guys are like Friday fraudster buddies, so connect with people in the chat. What do you say Robert?

2:55

I say that is excellent. Kelly, especially when you consider we're all either auditors or fraud investigators or compliance people. Let's all connect with one another and help build a better audit compliance and fraud investigation community. Hey, Dan is here and Dan is really really laughing. Matt Jones has a big smile on his face. And I think this is Cornell Cornell is dancing the night away. Grinnell you live in the Bahamas, so you should be dancing the night away. hadn't been there in a while. used to spend some time in Paradise Island. I used to have to go to work there. I worked for a company that would send me there about three weeks a year. It was a rough time there. I really hated it. Sorry, I couldn't even say that with a straight face. And Clarence is here man, Clarence, I hope you're doing well. We need to catch up soon. I know I said that a few weeks ago, but I'm a slacker. Sometimes Heather says that it is just regular coffee. And pozo says she doesn't know how she's doing yet. And militia. is pretty cool today. So Neil says yes, I am doing very well. And who is this? This is Simone. I believe. I got a LinkedIn user, this just LinkedIn user, but you're smiling. So we're happy about that. Kelly, someone is saying nice to Oh, that's going out again. Nice.

4:18

LinkedIn, and garneau. Shout out to her No. She's great on LinkedIn, and she always congrat someone when they get their CFP or some other designation. I love that Darnell, I hope to have her on great women and fraud. And pozo is going to be next week's episode on great women in fraud. We had a blast this week.

4:41

Oh, so you guys have already recorded it. Nice. So for you guys listening. Kelly has a podcast, great women in fraud. And next week. pozo is going to be on the great women in fraud podcast, and Thomas is joining us from Dallas. I'm sorry, sorry, Thomas from Houston, Texas, hence the cowboy hat. And Wanda is here in one is one of what's going on today. You kind of face palming it is that for me, or is that for you? Alright guys, um, man, before we go forward anymore, let me remind you, the Friday froster is a full fledged podcast. All episodes up until Well, today's have been loaded. We are on Google Play Stitcher, Amazon. A few others that I forget. But if you go to Friday froster calm you can listen to the replay. Or tell your friends about it. Here's the best part about it, though you can get CPE for just listening to us three. Hey, Ron, I guess it's just two of us today. Well, Kelly, anything you want to say before we jump into the first story for today?

6:09

Um, I apologize in advance for my opinions.

6:15

No need to apologize for the my friend. This is a let me just say you guys, today's story is one that we're going to do for the whole hour. Typically, we do two stories and we take 30 minutes. This is going to be the whole hour. And I'm just going to say bear with me, because I'm going to be reading from the indictment. And I'm going to try and remain factual and not be overly opinionated. But this is one that you want to hold on tight for. We've titled it the terrible tax collector. This individual was a tax collector in I believe Seminole County, Florida. Yes, he was in the Seminole County tax collector's office. He has been indicted on I think 30 counts. And we're going to go through a few of them. And we're going to start off with the easy ones first, the simple ones. So first, his name is Greenberg. That's his last name. Greenberg was one of the individuals in the tax collector's office who had an account with David David is the Florida system that they use for license and vehicle registrations, so for motor vehicles and I think even boats and other vehicles as well. So the system is called David, rather than using rather than limiting his use of the David system to exit activities permitted by federal and Florida law. According to his indictment, Greenberg used his access to the David's system to conduct hundreds of unauthorized searches that had nothing to do with any legitimate activities of the tax collector's office. Let's talk about one of those things that he did. One of the individuals Greenberg used to access the David system was to search for someone that they're calling rz. In 2015, Greenberg purchased a boat from rz. In connection with that transaction, Greenberg obtain the personal information from all of our z, which he used to obtain a replacement driver's license for rz on November 11, of 2015. Without Ozzy's knowledge, consent, or authorization. Here's what they're saying he did. They're saying that he changed the mailing address, last name, birthdate and address, and Ozzy's full social security number on the driver's license and then uploaded his picture. He then changed the address and sent it to a peel box that he owned. So he had this man's information on a driver's license with his picture. That's kind of weird. So we'll just pause here. Kelly, What say you?

9:30

I say that he knew he was gonna do bad stuff. And he didn't want it to come back to him. So oh my gosh, yeah, he he knew he was gonna I mean, okay, we're not lawyers, but like, the intent of going to do that is kind of frightening.

9:55

It's very frightening. But you know what, here's one thing that I find you Even more frightening, the fact that he actually had system access to do all of those things, he was in charge of the office. So I would have expected to see a lower level employee with the ability to go in and enter information. And then another one with the ability to approve the information, and then ultimate approval with him. But he had the ability to enter information, he had the ability to change information, he had the ability to literally change the mailing address and have items mailed to himself. That, in and of itself, is quite frightening. Because one thing that came to my mind was, how many other Florida offices are set up the same?

10:50

Well, and like I said, last week, if you have a personnel system, and I know this personally, and there's an audit trail, why would you ever turn it off? Unless you were doing something that you didn't want? Someone down the road to see? So like, we have technology, and Big Brother, whatever you want to call it? There's a reason for it. Because you know what, there are bad people out there. And I'm gonna say the joke Greenberg, bad person.

11:26

I think I would agree with you. And I was always saying identity theft, unauthorized access to the system. That is correct. And Juana is saying, it is frightening. She's been the victim of identity theft, not once, not twice, but three times. Now I wanna I know, you told me about once, but three times. We'll talk I'm just curious about this. Now, this is insane. You've been the victim of identity theft three times. And Michelle says she is late to the show. Did he work for the DMV, he was in charge of the tax collector's office, which was over all that good stuff. And Michelle, I sent you an email, check your email, I sent you an email my friend. Heather is saying probably all of them and also every other state as well always set up like that. Yeah. Yeah, that is that is scary. It is extremely scary that he had all of that access. But here's what makes it even more interesting. That wasn't the first time he did that. Or I'm sorry, it wasn't the last time that he did that. Apparently, he had stolen some other people's driver's licenses as well, including lifting some from AI for lack of a better term, like the Lost and Found box or a box in the office with licenses that had expired or had been found or had been mailed in, you know, when you lose your driver's license, someone can mail it in and or go back to the tax collector's office. So he had taken some more including one gentleman that was from Puerto Rico, and a few other driver's licenses. So that was not his last time doing this.

13:02

So then I have a quick question. And maybe it's in this and I didn't get that far is that can they not run? Like, um, you know, software, that and see where his picture pops up on which names? Like, you know,

13:22

I had a similar thought. And I'm guessing that the system that they use is not as sophisticated enough to do facial recognition. But I did read the indictment and he was caught, or they were able to prove what he had done, because they had looked at the audit trail, and they were able to see what he had done. But that see that begs another question, though. So that means that truly the audit trail is something that's used after the fact and not as a preventive tool, because you would have seen all of this activity, it would have popped up in an error report, because he did a lot of stuff. Now mark is asking, Is this an elected position? Yes, Mark. It is. And we'll wait till you hear some things that he did. With the elected position. Oh, boy, that's a great question. Heather says she'll never mail those back in. Yeah, I won't either. So now Heather's asking why don't they destroyed when they come in? From what I read. They are destroyed at some point. But to your point, as soon as they make it into the office, they should be destroyed. right then. And they should be flagged? Oh, yeah, definitely in the system as being lost. Yeah, yeah. Now mark is saying, Kelly, you have an interesting point. I would think you could do that. Especially if it is the same picture over and over. You know, what's interesting is Google does it. Right. So Google, like you You can literally upload a photo to Google and you can see where else it is on the internet. So well, and you would

15:02

think with this story, I mean, this is made just not even national news, it's made international news that some company would come forward and say, Hey, we could help you with that. Like, you know, I don't know about the privacy sort of thing. But on a case like this, where you have that, I don't know, if there's anyone out there in that space, maybe you want to reach out to Seminole County and say, Hey, we'd be happy to, you know, do this for you and just see if it helps, or maybe they've done it, and they just haven't publicized it.

15:34

Herein lies the issue with that. Because the dollar amount will probably be substantial, they would have to bid that project out. And the way government bids work is well, the lowest bidder typically wins. So is I don't know if you guys remember the astronaut Bose Buzz Aldrin, he made a joke one time saying that he was now for those listening on the podcast. Please note the sarcasm here. Those who are watching can probably see my face as I say this, but he said that he had the privilege of knowing that the spaceship that took him to the moon was built by the lowest bidder. So I mean, you know, so so the, the fanciest, newest best software may not win out, it would be the lowest bidder. And therein lies the problem. A lot of times with government contracts. And as Dan says government systems are always antiquated. And, you know, I don't like definitive, but I think in this case, it's pretty fitting.

16:40

Oh, one of my biggest cases we did, and we turned it over to the FBI and they didn't have the latest version of Excel, they can open the file. I'm like, Oh, my God. Yeah.

16:54

Who? Okay, okay. I get it. Well, okay. We'll move right along with that. So okay, so now Look, guys, here's here's, here's what the feds, I think it was the FBI that investigated this one. Here's what they did to actually get him on charges of interstate commerce. He actually ordered machines and a special ribbon in order to create the driver's licenses. He actually purchased the machines using tax collector funds. He also emailed himself a copy of a video and it just says in the indictment in internet video, but I'm assuming it was probably a YouTube teaching himself how to install the ribbon on the machine. But because the badge making machine and cardstock well Made in France, and because of that, they got him with Interstate and foreign commerce crimes. Yeah.

17:54

When we want to get someone, we'll throw everything at them.

17:58

Oh, yeah. Absolutely. I think the one thing that I like is with the criminal justice system here in the States, at least, not knowing about other countries, you have a jury of your peers. And we need to, you know, prove that you have done it beyond a reasonable doubt. And you have the right to an attorney. So we don't always get it right. But there is some due process that occurs. All right, what do you think into the juicy stuff? Oh, boy. Yeah, so much juicy. Okay, so now, that's the first thing that we're going to cover. Now let's move on to the second things. Second thing is it's under Count 14 of the indictment. After assuming office as the tax collector, Greenberg used his access to the accounts and funds of the tax collector's office to engage in what they call a scheme to defraud that enabled him to deprive the tax collector's office in Seminole County of use and benefit of funds. Now, it says in some cases, these depravations took form of short term loans that benefit Greenberg, personally. And in others, Greenberg intended a permanent deprivation. Now here's what's funny about this. I love the way they word these things, because in other words, he took out a loan for some money, and then some money he just outright stole, and did not intend to pay back. Some of it he actually used to acquire cryptocurrency, but here's the timeline you guys. Starting in February of 2017, he obtained a series of American Express cards in the name of the tax collector's office. He used those American Express cards to purchase 1000s of dollars of personal items. Some of those purchases consisted of cryptocurrency He purchased for him self. Now, on the American Express cards, they totaled about $7,203. Not a big amount, but that wasn't enough. He needed to up the ante, you guys so in December, he had $100,000 cryptocurrency purchase, but check out how he did this. This just blows my mind. Okay. So at the time of his tenure at the tax collector's office, they had bank accounts at Wells Fargo, seacoast National Bank, and Florida capital bank. He was one of three signatories on those bank accounts. on or about September 20 of 2017, he opened up an account titled Seminole County tax collector at Fifth Third Bank in Lake Mary Florida, where he was the only signatory on the account. Now we'll talk about this in a minute, why would a bank open up an account under a county and only have one signatory that's just odd in and of itself. So he opened up that account so that he could conceal it from the chief financial officer. Now, he made four different transactions where he deposited checks into that account on September 20, he deposited $27,000 on a check from carmax. On November the seventh, he deposited $2,500.04 $1,500. And then on November 21, all of 2017 he deposited a check for $2,500 all into this account for checks that were made out to the seminal tax to the Seminole County. So in other words, he stole this money. Now, on or about November 29 of 2017, he wrote a check from that account to himself in the amount of about $5,000 labeled cash for the office. The government is saying that this was a false representation that he made to conceal his debt. So they got him on that a false representation. Who, boy,

22:07

okay, so I bet everyone in the US like who remembers Fifth Third Bank and Where else? Did they have troubles with embezzlement? Does anyone remember where fifth? I can't even pronounce it? Fifth Third, like, okay, who is the person who named a bank that you literally can't pronounce? Um, but where else did they? Were they complicit? Let's just say that they admitted to not following the rules. Oh, wait, I don't remember this. Oh, come on. Think of me. And think of one of my the queen of pink collar crime. Rita crundwell. Dixon, Illinois, Fifth Third, and had to pay back a couple million dollars.

22:57

The horse lady? Yeah, the worst lady. Yeah, yes. As soon as you said I think of you. I should have gotten that because you love Rita Chrome. Well, he's one of your favorite people. Well, she's not one of my favorite people. But you know, well, she's one of your favorite criminals. Now, Mark. Mark is funny. Well, having that name wouldn't Marga saying what about a bank name? 32nd 17th bank? Hey, I said it. Haha.

23:27

That's easier to say than Fifth Third. That's what a speech pathologist is like, say fifth barred three times in a row. No one can say it.

23:39

So So look, guys, this this gentleman opened up a bank account under the under the name of the tax county collector's office, where he was the only signatory and he began to positing checks into this account. How in the world is that happened at any company? You know, for my auditors out there. What happened to the bank reconciliations? I mean, seriously, you got this check from carmax. At some point, it had to make it to the bank. Somebody wasn't doing bank rec recons, right. Like this doesn't make any sense. Yeah. I'm just baffled by this one. My guess is no one was doing bank reconciliations. That's the only thought that I have on it.

24:30

Yeah, it's it's I don't know anyone bank at Fifth Third. Anyone banks like I mean, what is what is the term when you have like politically sensitive people? Maybe all tax collector should be politically sensitive people

24:49

who? Yeah, I read some and some other stories about him and apparently, he's very well connected in Central and South Florida. And They're thinking that this is why he was able to do some of the things that he was able to do. But check this out, it gets better or worse, depending on how you're looking at it, right? So on or about December 20 of 2017. Greenberg email the CFO and asked, How much do we have that can be used for 60 to 90 day investments? And what is the most that you can do? The CFO explained to him in an email that, and I quote, the most we could have invest the most that we could invest, if we don't have any unexpected expenses is about $100,000. So what Greenberg had done is, nevermind, I'll just read you what he said to the CFO, he said, will you please draft the check to the Seminole County tax collector, remember, that's that bank account? For $100,000. I'm going to go with the short term investment, which I believe will have a much higher yield in 60 to 90 days. Thank you. I'll be in today to pick it up. So he told the CFO to give him a check for $100,000 so that he could invest it in a short term investment under the guise of making the county more money. Now, what he used this money for was to purchase cryptocurrency for himself.

26:25

Kelly,

26:28

this is insane. Like, it's insane on so many levels, if they only have $100,000, like literally laying around like, Okay, this is it, like, and then plus, this CFO should have said, No, like, there should be a regulation that says, you know, you can invest 60 to 90 days in T bills, you know, CDs, buy certain things, what if there is no way the tax collector should be able to go out and buy like a stock, let alone any of this? It's, it's insane, and like, why did the CFO do it?

27:09

So here's where it gets even more interesting. There is a Florida statute that identifies six different types of investments that are permissible. This is why he didn't tell the CFO, what he was actually going to use it for because cryptocurrency is not one of the approved investment types, but also he was using it for cryptocurrency for himself personally, not for the county. So I'm imagining his thought process was I can make a ton of money on this. I can repay a small amount to the county and then shave off some for myself. That's what I'm guessing he was thinking because there's no way he could have taken it. All right, that just doesn't make any sense. And Deidre is here. Hey, Deidre. Deidre says. So no standard up note. Wait, no. So D, what is this od is no p card reconciliation, MCI code blocks. Yeah. So a lot of people don't know what the MCI blocks are. That's the type of transaction that occurred, how the credit card companies delineate the types of transactions that occurred. And then, so they basically had a weak internal control structure not designed to detect or prevent these types of frauds. That is absolutely correct. These Deidre, that is. Pretty much what happened. Yeah. So guys, if if it couldn't get any better or worse, it actually does. So at some point, the county began running short on money. And so the CFO emailed Greenberg, and here's what the CFO said, he said, I'm sure you saw the email I sent yesterday regarding bills and not much money coming in. We are going to need additional funds before the end of the month to get all expenses paid, I can either get back the $100,000 in the short term investment account that I had given you, or we need to pull some funds back from an investment back from some other investment. He said we might need to do that last part in either case, meaning pullback investments from other accounts. We have winter springs, which is another county down there, invoices coming in as well as our normal items. And some old invoices are trickling in from prior months, as vendors realized that they had for that they never got paid for things. At this rate. There will not be enough money for the end of the month. payroll. This is a county in Florida. You guys a large county Seminole County, I believe is the city of Orlando, or one of the surrounding cities for Orlando. It's right there in Central Florida. If you guys know for certain, let me know. Because there's so many counties down there right outside of Orlando, but I mean, that's the house of the mouse right Surely there's enough we think Kelly

29:58

you know takes me back to it was in I believe it was in California, and it was maybe in the early 2000s, or maybe in the 1990s. where like, you know, City Council's went and made these crazy investments that wall street sold them that went like that. But at least I don't think anyone was looking to personally profit. I think they were looking to try to look good. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, this is this is what rules and regulations and Robert's Rules of Order. And all that sort of stuff is meant for is to protect the taxpayers.

30:41

Yes, absolutely. Now we've got some good points coming in. Matt says segregation of duties, but Mark hits something that's very important. Mark says, Who has the dominant personality, their tax collector or the CFO? He railroaded him. And this is one thing you guys hear me talk about, in my trainings with internal auditors, we have to learn to be brave. We have to learn to be braver, we're going to talk about some auditors in this particular situation and what happened or what didn't happen, the state of Florida auditors, but there's some consequences with being brave. But if you cannot hold forth, if you cannot stand by your moral compass, then you don't need to be in our profession. You need to be able to stand up and you might lose your job, you might lose your reputation, who cares? As long as you still have the pride of knowing that you did the right thing. Now, pozo says, Did the CFO have an accounting degree? And did he ever take an auditing class? That is a good question. And Martin is here and Martin says it's clear there was an intimidation factor. Exactly. That is 100% Americans and their fear of the Boogey Man and tax man on steroids. Yeah, I would say some Americans, you know, some of us we have to, you know, now, Heather says Orange County you right here the Orange County is Orlando. seminar was one of the counties right outside of Orlando. Thank you very much, Heather. I knew somebody would be able to help me out. And then pozo says, what kind of accounting department are they running? and Heather, thank you. seminal is ultimate springs and Winter Park. here's the here's the thing, too. What else is in ultimate springs, my friends, especially my auditing professionals here, what else is in altamonte Springs, which is Seminole County, Florida, where the tax collector allegedly robbed people blind. I want to see who's the first person to type it in the first person to type it in. I will give you a free CPE from a Friday froster episode. It's just one hour of CPE but I'll give you a free CPE

32:46

so I'm looking on the Seminole County Florida dot govt and under support, there is a fraud hotline. So I haven't found a CFO yet. But um, I there's agendas and minutes, which we don't have time to go through, but I'm sure that's just delightful. There's probably all sorts of stuff. So, yeah, just um, I can't.

33:13

Now, I love having our interview expert here. Mark says remember that bullying personality is often a cover for laden insecurities, which are fun to dismantle in an interview. You got that right, Mark, you've got that right. And Heather is our winner, the EIA, the Institute of internal auditors. their headquarters is in altamonte Springs. Now in that just Oh, you know what Matt saying is in Lake Mary now. Is it Matt? Oh, I have to check that out. Okay, so if I am incorrect, then Matt, you win. And lo quiche. I love Loki, because Loki says but Robert, auditors may not always be brave. But in many cases, there is just no appetite from the higher ups. Yes, you are correct about that. Now pros always say no one should ever complain about the IRS again. But my friends, this one, it gets even better. So check this out. on or about January 18 of 2018. So now we've gone into a whole nother year. Greenberg, he obtained a cashier's check for $100,000 from one of his accounts, but he had to actually get a loan from one of his family members to pay back the money. He got a $90,000 loan from a family member and they actually wrote a loan in the notation line. So he had to go borrow 90. I wish I had a family member that could give me $90,000. Anyway, he had to borrow $90,000 from a family member which tells us that well, that money must have been tied up he spent it or Couldn't get it out. So he had to borrow money from family to pay back the money.

35:07

So I just put in the chat. I put the LinkedIn profile of the CFO of Seminole County. Oh, I only have one connection. And so we don't we don't know very much about him. And it might not even be correct. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It might not be correct. But yeah.

35:29

Hmm. Interesting. And this is why Kelly is so good at what she does you guys. You see how quickly she found that LinkedIn account.

35:43

Okay, but so we are like more than halfway through and we haven't even gotten to the juicy stuff. You know, you're right. Yeah. Okay. We've only got 23 minutes for sex, drugs and rock'n'roll.

35:56

Okay, so. And you guys, Kelly said that and she laughed. But she is so serious. Alright, here's where we're gonna go next. Really quickly. Okay. You guys gonna have to bear with me on this one. Because this is really crazy. If you think everything you've heard so far is crazy. This is going to have you scratching your head. He actually attacked a potential opponent in the race in the tax collectors race. And when I say attacked, I don't mean physically. So listen. victim in count number four, is a teacher at a school located in the Middle District of Florida. on or about October 4 2019. The teacher filed with the Seminole County Board of Elections that she was going he or she was going to run for the elected office of guess what tax collector so she would have been running against Greenberg. Because the teacher had filed to run against him. Greenberg used email, interactive computer and other methods to engage in a course of conduct that caused attempted to cause and would reasonably expect to cause substantial emotional distress to the teacher. Here's what he did. He sent anonymous letters to the school where the teacher worked purporting to be from a student, a concerned student. The envelope contained anonymous type typing and stuff like that to try and conceal who he was. But what he did was he alleged that there was a an inappropriate sexual relationship between the teacher his potential opponent and a student. He not only did that once, he did that eight times to eight different faculty members, but it gets even better or worse, depending on how you're looking at it. On November the second, he started a Twitter account and imposter Twitter account using the teacher's name and photograph. In that Twitter account. He said on November the second, a couple of things. One, he said I'm running for office to keep Seminole County white and segregated. It's time we take our country back. He also said I'm a proud American red, white and blue, white. He also said this is great. Oh god, I can't even read this one. Nevermind. This one is just too bad. Um, you did, he also established a fake fake Facebook account? Where he went on Facebook and said

38:37

stuff?

38:39

stuff. Kelly?

38:45

Hey, Well, okay, first off, he's dumb as a doorknob, because his fingerprints were like on six of the eight letters, fingerprints, you know, people and then he didn't try to use a VPN he, his IP came back to his house, I think, like, yep, stupid crooks did. Yeah. I mean, he's just stupid. And why is he stupid? Because Sex, drugs and rock'n'roll.

39:17

Yep. And we've not even gotten to the sex part yet. So.

39:29

But for those of you listening to the podcast, this silence is because we're just kind of stunned. Okay, so so so let's talk about some of the things he's done so far. He accessed the state system to do a bunch of things that he should not have done, including getting some fake driver's licenses for people and just looking up information on people to we'll see where he looked up some information on some young ladies that he was involved with we'll say it like that he looked up some information on some young ladies that he was involved with. He also established a fake bank account within which he stole money from the county to purchase cryptocurrency from him for himself. So this tells us that obviously, the whole bank reconciliation process must have been just non existent. Or maybe he was the bank reconciler as well, right? proposals point, did the CFO even take an accounting class and who was running that accounting department. So this is just very interesting. And so now, what we're talking about is how he actually had an opponent of potential opponent who was going to run against him in the next election. And he sent letters to his or her school, claiming that there was an inappropriate sexual relationship between this student and the teacher. He also created a fake Twitter account, and a fake Facebook account. And as Kelly said, his fingerprints were on six of the eight letters that he sent. And when they traced the IP address associated with the Twitter account, and the Facebook account, it all went back to his home to his personal residence. So yeah, he didn't even use a VPN. So now, Mark, you were just so wrong for this. This is hilarious. Thanks for bringing some comedy to it. Mark. Mark said, at least he did background checks on his women. So I can't even find that funny. I found it to be

41:30

it's No, It's horrifying. You think it's like the tax collector is being like one of us boring, you know, looking at spreadsheets and, and this guy did it for money and power. Like, yeah, he didn't do it for the common good. Have the county? Absolutely not. And that's what's like, so frustrating. And actually, he apparently said he was going to get an

42:00

elected outsider for orange, the orange sheriff's office, because he wanted to own and control the sheriff's office. So when people think that like, Oh, this doesn't happen, like that's just Hollywood or something like that,

42:14

you get pulled over. And you have a sheriff's office who has a, I mean, we had a case out here in Portland, where a guy got pulled over because he sold a car or something like, if you don't think that law enforcement or government can affect you, you're out of your skull. But no one on this call is out of their skull. Because we know it because we see it. But it's really frightening when you think that he thought he could own and control the sheriff's office. Again, this is like our our liberty is at stake.

42:56

It definitely is when you have a governmental body that has the authority to do these kinds of things. And as I said earlier, apparently he had a lot of connections in the area. And Mark says, I guarantee he thinks that he's brilliant, and Shri Hey, Sri, better late than never, Sri Sri says, Hey, Kelly. Now also, Heather says, Man, what a dirtbag tree says she wonders if any of his friends knew. And if he paid them. From what I can tell at least one of his friends knew right, Kelly?

43:38

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And like, again, this is Friday fraudster it's night Friday politics. But they say that additional indictments are coming from Matt gates and like at, honestly, it's disgusting. And I don't know why no one is making a big deal of it. Whether you're Republican or Democrat, libertarian communist. The stuff that these two did is horrific.

44:10

Yeah, this should actually be to Kelly's point. This should actually be on national news. I mean, it really should be

44:17

was, but then they found something else to take away from it.

44:21

Oh, boy. Yeah, I must have missed it. It must have been just that fast because I actually missed it on the national news. I did see where yes, some other indictments are coming in. apparently one of his friends is starting to talk about some of the things that they did and he's, you know, he's he's snitching. He is latching which is good, because this in and of itself is a lot. I think this is more than any one person has had on any case we've talked about on this show since we've been doing it. Alright, Kelly, you want to get to the sex, drugs and rock and roll?

44:57

Well, okay, so there is an app and I didn't realize I kind of vaguely heard of it. It's called seeking arrangement. And it's rich men who give hotel rooms or trips or, you know, for company. Well, that's code for sex. There's 20 million members, according to the founder of the app. And, you know, there's Venmo cash app payments that showed a 17 year old on the platform that was purchased. What else is there's another girl not tied to this at all, but she was a member of seeking arrangement. And she was brutally murdered in Utah. But she was on that app seeking arrangement. So you know,

45:47

so yeah, here's here's what the indictment has to say. And here's where it gets even more interesting with this person. He says Greenberg used at least four accounts to pay for commercial sex acts, his personal Venmo account his personal American Express account and get this. His American Express account at the tax collector's office and his personal Fifth Third Bank account, this man likes Fifth Third, from December 2016 to December 2018. Greenberg use those accounts to Kentucky to conduct more than 150 financial transactions totaling over $70,000, all of which involve Greenberg paying women for commercial sex acts. Using these accounts. It says with respect to Greenberg's personal Venmo account, the transactions were often between $200 and $1,000. And Greenberg often falsely represented that the purpose of okay sorry that the purpose of the payments was for school related or other living expenses. For example, some of the common messages that Greenberg included with his payment for commercial sex acts were school food and ice cream. And then it says one of the individuals Greenberg paid for commercial sex acts was a minor under the age of 18. For part of the time when Greenberg paid her

47:18

Okay, so just I didn't even I assumed, but maybe, you know, we don't assume there's a story on MSN wife believes Joel Greenberg. Joel Greenberg tracked her to Jupiter using chat Snapchat. So all of this, he's got his wife. Like, I don't know if he has kids. You probably has kids. I don't know. Does anyone know if he has kids? Um, but yeah, so. Um, so yeah, he he's got a wife. He's paying for sex regularly. Like, oh my god. Can you imagine being his wife? She's not gonna get any alimony.

48:16

Um Oh, I lost you. Did you lose me? Oh, you can't hear my voice. Oh, there it is. Okay. Um, yeah, guys, I I'm this is probably the worst one yet. Now. Sri says it will probably become a Lifetime movie or 2020. Special. I agree with you. 100%. Shri. Yeah. Yeah.

48:50

And it's a it's a money thing. It's a power thing. It's Yeah. And as opposed to says tax dollars paying for sex. Sadly, he's not the first or the last.

49:02

Well, and I think to when you take a look at all of the issues in concert, um, one problem that a lot of local government agencies have is none of them actually have internal auditing functions. And I can tell you in Florida, the state actually does what they call operational audits on a rotational duty. So you might see your state auditor is doing operational audits once every three years or so. It's not as in depth as an internal audit would be, but that would have caught a lot of this. You see a lot of municipalities now ponying up the money to have at least one or two people on staff to look at limited things specifically cash and access to systems but in Florida, that that's not it's not necessarily how it's done yet. Some cities do have you know, that second look, that audit function, but a lot of them don't. The larger cities tend to but some of the smaller counties don't. With a lot of the transaction that occurred on the American Express card, simple data analysis. And we've been saying this, we sound like a broken record now on the show, but data analysis would have seen the unusual activity and would have pointed out some of this puzzle was saying, Is there anything he didn't do? Did he gamble? You know, that's an interesting point. Because a lot of the people in the past were gamblers. But this guy from from what I understand he was not poor to begin with. I mean, heck, a family member. Let him borrow $90,000 I mean, how many of us? Have any of us have problems getting $1 from a family member? Hey, man, let me borrow $1 right. So Kelly, can I borrow $1? What's your social security number? No, how about this? No. Can you Venmo me?

50:51

I'm sorry.

50:52

So okay. pozos did he gamble? Some people would say Betting on you know, Bitcoin or crypto. It was a gamble. It's a bit of a gamble.

51:07

I donated to a church. Yeah. Free. I don't think he donated it to a church, my friend. I don't think he did. I am just a little speechless on this one. I'm sorry. Yeah, this is this is probably the the least amount you've ever heard me speak in the more tongue tag you've ever heard me. But think about this. We have an individual that had access to a system and produce fake driver's licenses on multiple occasions, opened up a fake bank account, where he siphon money from the county, and then use that to buy cryptocurrency. He sent letters to a teacher school claiming that the teacher was having an inappropriate relationship. He opened up fake Twitter accounts and fake Facebook accounts to slander that teacher as well. He He is accused of engaging in inappropriate acts with a minor. Um, and here's one thing that we didn't mention. During COVID, he actually defrauded the Small Business Association and took out some COVID relief loans.

52:19

Well, and his sentencing just got delayed. He asked for delay in sentencing. And they say, I wonder if the DOJ tries to indict the gates associates first, then go after gates himself. I know the reporting says they should decide by the end of July. Yeah. So there's a lot of chess playing going on with this because it's a big deal. I mean, we're talking about, you know, what is the house of House of Representatives getting indicted, which actually isn't all that uncommon?

52:55

Who is not? You know what, though, Shree asked earlier, if his friends knew about it, when it came to the SBA loan. It is alleged that he conspired with an SBA employee and another individual referred to as recruiter conspirator to submit false applications for the loans. So he was apparently conspiring with at least to other people with the SBA loans. I'm not sure if he conspired with other folks on the other stuff. I will say he was fairly entrepreneurial though. Right? He is. I'm sorry. This has been so bad. I'm just trying to add a little bit of comedy to this one because this is this is insane. I've never seen anything like this. Look, he says you've got to give him full marks for effort. I agree with that. My friend. bonito Benita just got here. She was a little late. She says, Wow, this guy's been busy. So I'm glad you heard the recap be because, yeah, busy is an understatement.

53:55

Well, and so he's going to go to prison. And what's he going to do in prison? And then what's he going to do when he comes out? Like, again, he's getting mad. Well, you know, Mike, Michael avenatti, just got sentenced to two and a half years in prison. And he's gonna come out and he's gonna pull a friend Capek. Now just, he's got that personality. But like this guy, what? I hope he has to stay in Florida. And he doesn't come out west as part of probation that he has to stay in Florida. No offense to you guys in Florida, but you can keep him.

54:30

Well, now, Sri says this dude is a new level of working the system where she's trying to help her daughter get grants to pay for school. Well, Sri, you should probably call this guy or he could probably he could help you get a grant. All right. Of course, you might end up in jail, but that does your daughter no good, but

54:52

maybe we should do a study of how many tax collectors have been you know convicted,

55:01

you know, actually would be interesting. Because Because, again, these entities have the weakest controls.

55:09

I mean, I tweet stuff all the time and county clerk's tax collector. I mean, it. Surprisingly, there are a lot.

55:17

Oh, yeah, a ton of them. Now Mark says he will be running the contraband cigarette program. Oh, that was funny, Mark. I like that.

55:26

Well, Bernie, and I'm typing it in the quotes. Did swiftness he ran with Miss market in prison. Bernie Madoff. Uh huh. Oh,

55:39

no, Martin is saying there's something in prison called tax collecting and more and more on you. There is something called tax collecting. All right. And it is not nice. Oh, boy.

55:53

And this is going to be also interesting, because where are the players gonna land? Is he the top? Is he the bottom? Like, you would think he isn't the top he's close to the top. You would think gates might be but you know, the higher you are the lesser your punishment. Generally. That's from the acfe for prom embezzlement.

56:16

So you're right. Yeah. Yeah. Now Loki brings up an interesting point. That's a big assumption that he will come out of prison. Remember Epstein. And Dan says he can run for office again. And when? Now, Mark, I want to know how do you know this market saying cigarettes are more lucrative in prison than the mints than the Swiss Miss that made of hocked How do you know that mark? Is there a secret pass that we don't know about my friend? Oh, boy. Um, wow. So Kelly, what else you got on this?

57:00

Well, it's, I mean, really, this is just one piece of the puzzle. Because in a couple of weeks, months, we're gonna be talking about the other pieces that fall to it. And it's just, you know, oh, there's so many different things, but unfortunately, you have, you have people that are taken advantage of you have young women that are taken advantage of. And, um, you know, yeah, it's, I don't like to say money is the root of all evil. But sometimes it really kind of is. And 20 million members on that seeking arrangement. I know, no one's going to put in there that a member of seeking arrangement, but I'm shocked by that number, that number is huge.

57:51

Um, if you are at work or using your work computer or going through your company's VPN, do not type that into your Google search bar. Not take that into your Google search bar. Now mark is saying $10 per cigarette and can get 60 from a pack. And lo quiche. I'm with you. He says Mark knows too much. But in all seriousness, Mark says I have investigated numerous cases in federal prisons. And Mark has mark is a super duper investigator, just like Kelly, the two of them should team up. And we should have like, we should go out and just go to every county in the nation and do investigations of different things. Now, as we close if we as we come close to the end, let's just end this on somewhat of a comedic element. I mean, Martin says don't ask about who's on top and going to prison in the same segment. So you guys keep typing those comments into the chat. Thank you for joining us today. This was a this was a tough one honestly, for me to get through when I read till the and I don't mean tough from the standpoint of I couldn't read it. I mean, tough from the stuff that I read. The indictment is 86 pages and I read all 86 pages for you guys and we just gave you a summary. But remember, if you want CPE for just watching us do this and having fun with us, even if you didn't watch it live, go to Friday froster.com you can get one hour anywhere from 30 minutes to one hour of CPE depending on how long the episode is. And right now it's at a very reasonable rate. I'm not going to say how much because we might go up and I don't want this to be recorded and you say when that episode you said it was X number of dollars. But it was very reasonable so that our friends all over the world could afford some reasonably priced CPE ease for you know, I almost said for having a good time with us but honestly, I actually didn't have fun today. I I just what about you Kelly I did not have fun today.

59:55

This is this one I was really concerned about because it could go very polluted. All and but it shouldn't be. It really shouldn't be political. This is about crime. And crime doesn't have a political party. crime has money, sex, rock and roll. So, but I was concerned, because I have strong opinions about the political side of it and I, but it's not because of my party. It's, I think that it's like the show billions. Are you team Bobby, are you team Chuck Rhodes? I'm team Bobby. You know, Bobby's a crook. But the good guy who isn't a good guy. I can't be that team. Yep. So that's why it was kind of hard. Yeah, thank you locate.

1:00:48

Yeah, Loki says this is a really fun way of getting CPE slow quiche. tell all your friends. tell all your friends. And Martin says mark a kinda made it a little fun though. He always does. Martin. So come back next week. We've actually had mark on as a special guest once or twice wasn't twice mark. It was it once. Was it three times? I can't remember. But it's always. And I think he replaced me for two weeks in a row. Oh, you know what? I think you're right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now mark is also saying wait hopes mark is also saying that in our business, it should never be political. I agree with that. 100%. Whether you're a fraud investigator, an internal auditor, an external auditor, it should never be political issue view about what's right and what's wrong. And there was a whole lot wrong with this situation. Mark is saying just what I'm saying it's right and wrong. Yeah. It's either right or it's wrong. So you guys, thanks for hanging out with us. We'll see you guys next week.

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