Florida man gets five years in prison for trying to defraud Matt Gaetz and his family

Florida man Stephen Alford was sentenced to 63 months in federal prison Tuesday after pleading guilty to wire fraud amid a bizarre plot involving an attempt to shake down the father of Rep. Matt Gaetz and a pledge to try to secure a presidential pardon.

Alford, 62, pleaded guilty fraud in the convoluted scheme last year. According to the indictment, he approached Don Gaetz, the wealthy father of the Trump loyalist lawmaker, after having learned of a Justice Department investigation of alleged sex trafficking. 

Gaetz has denied wrongdoing and no charges have been filed against him. 

The sentence will be followed by three years of supervised release. 

Alford sought $25 million from Don Gaetz to fund an effort to free Robert Levinson, who disappeared in Iran years ago, and said he would help seek a pardon from President Joe Biden for Rep. Gaetz.

He cast the Levinson matter as a rescue effort, dubbed ‘Project Homecoming.’ 

Levinson is a former FBI agent who disappeared in Iran in 2007 after traveling there as a private investigator and was held hostage. Alford claimed he had ‘proof of life.’

The lawmaker revealed the shakedown in a in March 2021 appearance on Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s prime time show. 

‘What is happening is an extortion of me and my family,’ Gaetz told the host. 

‘The FBI and the Department of Justice were so concerned about this attempted extortion of a member of Congress that they asked my dad to wear a wire, which he did with the former Department of Justice official,’ he said. 

Carlson called the appearance, where Gaetz claimed there were people at DOJ ‘trying to smear me’ and brought up another alleged shakedown incident, ‘one of the weirdest interviews I’ve ever conducted.’ But Gaetz’ account of the scheme ultimately held up. 

Gaetz tweeted about it on March 30, 2021. 

‘Over the past several weeks my family and I have been victims of an organized criminal extortion involving a former DOJ official seeking $25 million while threatening to smear my name. We have been cooperating with federal authorities in this matter,’ he wrote.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) revealed the scheme on TV and on Twitter

It came as the feds were investigating Gaetz in an alleged sex trafficking probe. Gaetz denies wrongdoing. Former Seminole County, Florida, tax collector Joel Greenberg pleaded guilty to trafficking 17-year-old girl, and provided information to the government about Gaetz

Gaetz described the shakedown in an appearance Fox News host Tucker Carlson called ‘one of the weirdest interviews I’ve ever conducted’

According to the indictment of Alford, he ‘falsely represented’ during the shakedown attempt that Biden will ‘strongly consider’ a pardon or ‘instruct the Department of Justice to terminate any and all investigations’ of the Republican congressman, identified as ‘Family Member A.’

Alford later admitted he had no such assurance. 

In May 2021, Gaetz associate Joel Greenberg pleaded guilty to trafficking 17-year-old girl, and provided information to the government about the lawmaker, the Washington Post reported. 

Don Gaetz is the former Florida state Senate president.