Bill pitched by lobbyist places Hertz in line for $2.3 million tax cut
TALLAHASSEE — The Hertz rental car company is poised to save $2.3 million in taxes under a bill that passed a Senate committee Monday, even as the chamber is poised to pass a budget that includes large cuts to hospitals and universities.
Records obtained by the Orlando Sentinel show an aide to Hertz lobbyist Will McKinley pitched the idea for the bill to Senate Majority Leader Kathleen Passidomo, R-Naples, on Jan. 21.
The email explained that companies such as Hertz, which qualify for the state’s capital investment tax credit program, are unable to use them because of the economic downturn caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Florida’s program requires the credits to be used against income
in June.
The Times report noted that many details of the Gaetz probe remain unclear, including how the congressman allegedly met the girl. The encounters allegedly occurred about two years ago and the investigation began in the final months of the Trump administration under then-Attorney General William P. Barr, the report said.
No charges have yet been brought against Gaetz. Neither the congressman nor his office could be reached for comment.
But in an interview with the news website Axios, Gaetz described himself as a generous romantic partner who had “absolutely” not dated underage girls.
“I have definitely, in my single days, provided for women I’ve dated,” he said. “You know, I’ve paid for flights, for hotel rooms. I’ve been, you know, generous as a partner. I think someone is trying to make that look criminal when it is not.”
But Gaetz also claimed, in comments to the Times and Axios as well as in a thread of posts on Twitter, that he was the victim of a convoluted extortion plot by unnamed former Department of Justice officials, who he said had used threats to smear him in an attempt to extort millions of dollars.
“No part of the allegations against me are true, and the people pushing these lies are targets of the ongoing extortion investigation,” he said.
Greenberg resigned as tax collector in June, after he was arrested at his home by federal agents. He faces 14 charges, including allegations that he stalked a political opponent, illegally used a state database to create fake IDs and sex trafficked a minor.
Federal prosecutors charge that Greenberg used his access as an elected official to a confidential state database to look up information about a girl between the ages of 14 and 17 with whom he was engaged in a “sugar daddy” relationship.
Greenberg also is charged with producing “a false identification document and to facilitate his efforts to engage in commercial sex acts,” according to federal indictments filed with the U.S. Attorney’s office in August.
Several former employees told the Orlando Sentinel that Greenberg often mentioned how he and Gaetz were close friends, and that the congressman would often visit him at his Lake Mary home.
Prosecutors said in a grand jury indictment that Greenberg, as tax collector, took surrendered drivers licenses before they were shredded by office staff and created new IDs with his photograph but with the personal information of residents.
When federal agents first arrested Greenberg in the early morning of June 23 at his home in the gated Heathrow community, they said they found on the front seat of Greenberg’s SUV, which belonged to the Tax Collector’s Office, a backpack holding several fake IDs, according to court records. Agents also found materials used to create fake IDs at Greenberg’s office at the Tax Collector’s administrative office in Lake Mary.
Greenberg was released on bond after his arrest but was returned to custody March 3, when a federal magistrate ordered him back to jail for violating his 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew and for leaving the Central Florida area. According to court records, Greenberg had left his Lake Mary home on Feb. 28 and drove to his motherin-law’s condominium in Jupiter to look for his wife, Abby Greenberg.
Greenberg is now in the Orange County Jail awaiting his trial scheduled for mid-June.