BALTIMORE — A former government employee in Baltimore City's finance department used his position to take bribes.
Joseph Gillespie worked in the City's Revenue Collections Department, dealing with property owners who faced losing their property in tax auctions unless certain fines were paid off.
According to the Department of Justice, Gillespie for about 7-years carried out a bribery scheme.
Typically Gillespie charged property owners 10 to 15 percent of what they owed in exchange for making the outstanding fees go away.
Gillespie would access the City's record database, and either mark the obligation as paid, or postpone
the payment due date, which in turn stopped property liens from going into effect.
At times Gillespie sent the property owner a picture of what he'd done to make the payments disappear.
A majority of the financial penalties were for unpaid citations, taxes, and water obligations.
The FBI got onto Gillespie's scheme by recording some of his conversations.
"You want 100 for each property?” one purported property owner asked Gillespie, for which he replied “yeah that’s basically how I do.”
In another recording, this is Gillespie explaining how he could “wipe a bill off."
“There was a couple, extra miscellaneous bills that y’all had that I wiped off …. That sh*t gone now.”
Gillespie was quoted telling one property owner, "I’m just your inside man ... That’s what I do for a lot of different people around the City. You know what I mean – manage their sh*t for them a little bit …. I’m gonna go look at your sh*t.”
In total, it's estimated Gillespie collected $250,000 in bribes costing the City approximately $1,250,000.
The Feds say Gillespie also applied for and was granted a $138,000 federal loan through the Paycheck Protection Program.
Gillespie claimed to own a business, while fabricating its number of employees and monthly payroll.
After receiving the money, Gillespie faked documentation to have the loan forgiven.
All this while giving $38,000 in kickbacks to someone named Ahmed (“Adam”) Sary, who allegedly helped Gillespie file the loan application.
In exchange for his guilty plea, Gillespie and the government agreed to a prison sentence between two and five years.
A judge still has to approve and will rule on December 9.
