When FBI agents secretly recorded conversations with a Baltimore City employee offering to wipe debts or delay payment deadlines in exchange for bribes, the employee, Joseph Gillespie, indicated he was getting help from a “girl” in “water” — the city’s Department of Public Works.
Last week Gillespie, a former Department of Finance employee, admitted to the bribery scheme when he pleaded guilty to a separate wire fraud conspiracy charge. But the Department of Public Works employee mentioned in the court records? No one is saying.
Mayor Brandon Scott’s office, citing legal concerns, won’t say if the employee still works for the city. He declined to answer the question at a Wednesday news conference due to a possible investigation.
In a written statement Thursday evening, Scott’s office said Gillespie is being investigated by the Office of the Inspector General. The federal criminal case is ongoing, the statement added.
In court records, federal prosecutors said Gillespie, 35, obtained bribes over a nearly eight-year period while working in the revenue collections division of the finance department. He and a series of co-conspirators would connect with property owners, remove or reduce the amount of taxes they owed, and then doctor the city’s books to reflect that payments had been made.
In all, prosecutors said Gillespie accepted about $250,000 in bribes from property owners from 2016 through September 2023, the time of his arrest. During that time, the city lost out on more than $1.2 million in revenue.
Gillespie, though, wasn’t suspended until this past December, according to the city, and finally resigned at the end of April. In July, the city learned that the inspector general was working on a report about “tax sale irregularities” when the office inquired about “operations and workflows,” according to Scott’s office.
An attorney for Gillespie characterized his client last week as a beloved community figure and remorseful young man. Federal prosecutors declined to comment further on the matter, citing “ongoing investigations.”
It’s unclear, aside from the one woman mentioned in court records as aiding Gillespie in the Department of Public Works, if there were other accomplices in city government connected to the scheme. Prosecutors listed three unnamed co-conspirators in the plea agreement records, one of whom also benefited from having liens erased.
Federal prosecutors said Gillespie worked in the revenue collections department in the Abel Wolman Municipal Building downtown. They said the city hired him in 2006, but online salary records list his start date in December 2009. Gillespie was set to earn more than $44,000 for the budget year beginning July 1, 2021, according to city salary records.
Gillespie began taking bribes as early as 2016, prosecutors said — and, in some cases, prevented properties from being sold in the annual tax sale. He would also occasionally accept bribes to delay or postpone payment due dates, prosecutors said in a letter outlining the plea agreement, without permission or approval from other city officials.
Undercover agents with the FBI helped expose the scheme.
An agent paid Gillespie $800 to settle eight different properties’ debts during a recorded meeting in which Gillespie recounted his ability to clear water bills, too.
“Going forward, I’m just your inside man ... That’s what I do for a lot of different people around the city,” he told the undercover agent. “I’m gonna go look at your shit. Anyone with a high water bill I’m gonna text you the address, and I’m gonna tell you what I need, and we can knock them out going forward with that. ... Any water bill that’s too high, I’ll get my girl [in the public works department] to take care of that.”
Typically, prosecutors said, Gillespie charged property owners from 10% to 15% of the amount they owed to the city. After receiving the payment, he would mark the obligations as resolved in the city’s online records. At times, he would produce a false cashier slip showing that a payment was made.
Prosecutors declined to say if there would be other charges brought in this case.
Meanwhile, Gillespie and a co-conspirator also obtained fraudulent COVID-19 relief loans from Cross River Bank and the U.S. Small Business Administration. In one application for funds, Gillespie claimed his real estate company had five employees and gross revenue of $20,000 in 2019. In another application, he wrote that he had 19 employees and an average monthly payroll of $55,241. A “fabricated” 2019 Internal Revenue Service form was submitted as part of the application, as was a “fake and fraudulent” bank statement for a Wells Fargo bank account.
Prosecutors said Gillespie then hired a payroll services provider to use the PPP funds to make payments to purported employees, including his friends and associates. Gillespie used those payments to request forgiveness of the loan. About $60,000 in “sham” payroll payments were made, prosecutors said. Gillespie used some of the loan funds, prosecutors said, to pay down personal debts and purchase and rehabilitate real estate in Baltimore.
