A former Baltimore Department of Finance employee admitted Friday to engaging in a yearslong bribery scheme in which he accepted payments to clear property owners’ outstanding water bills and taxes they owed to the city.

Joseph Gillespie, 35, acknowledged the bribery scheme as part of a guilty plea in a separate conspiracy to commit wire fraud case that involved fraudulently obtaining Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster loans from the federal government. Federal prosecutors say Gillespie received more than $138,000 in COVID-19 relief benefits in 2021 and more than $250,000 in bribes from property owners from 2016 through September 2023, the time of his arrest.

Maryland U.S. Attorney Erek L. Barron and Special Agent in Charge William J. DelBagno of the Baltimore Federal Bureau of Investigation office made the plea agreement public Friday. If a judge accepts the agreement, Gillespie could face from two to five years in prison.

Gerald C. Rutter, an attorney for Gillespie, said in a Saturday morning email that his client is a beloved young man who takes full responsibility for his actions and “will do everything he can to make amends.”

Federal prosecutors said Gillespie worked in the city finance agency’s revenue collections department in the Abel Wolman Municipal Building downtown. The city hired him in 2006.

Beginning in 2016, prosecutors said, Gillespie took bribes in exchange for extinguishing property owners’ debts with the city — which, in some cases, meant preventing their properties from being sold at 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.

Prosecutors said Gillespie engaged in “multiple covertly recorded” telephone and video conversations in which he would discuss taking payments in exchange for clearing a debt or postponing a payment deadline. Details of the phone conversations are laid out in court records.

In one phone conversation, the undercover agent confirmed the amount of the payment with Gillespie.

“Yeah, that’s basically how I do,” he said. He added that he had a “girl” in “water” — which meant the Baltimore Department of Public Works — who could “wipe some shit out,” referring to the undercover agent’s purported debts.

In another instance, Gillespie said he could “wipe a bill off” the city’s debt record tied to a particular property or “put paid next to ‘em,” even if a tax bill remained unpaid.

Gillespie also preemptively removed some bills for the undercover agent on properties he thought were his.

“There was a couple, extra miscellaneous bills that y’all had that I wiped off,” he was recorded saying. “That ... gone now.”

The undercover agent paid Gillespie $800 to settle eight different properties’ debts during a recorded meeting, during 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 to take care of that.”

Prosecutors said Gillespie involved multiple co-conspirators — one of whom had their tax debts removed by Gillespie. The other would refer property owners to Gillespie for help clearing or reducing their bills.

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.

One co-conspirator would demand a bribe in exchange for referring debtors to Gillespie. In one exchange, the co-conspirator sent Gillespie an address of a property owner who wanted help with their bills, according to court records.

Gillespie said the water and tax bill amounted to about $8,000 combined.

“I will do 1200 for both bro,” he texted the co-conspirator.

“let me get the [bread] and then it’s a go,” the co-conspirator replied.

Another co-conspirator, who would also have debts removed in exchange for money, once tried to negotiate with Gillespie about the size of the payment.

“How much u got for it man lol,” Gillespie texted.

“As much for you and as little for them as possible?”

“6k for city? That’s cool on 18 bro.”

“f the city. and YES! $6k even?”

“Bout 6500.”

Meanwhile, Gillespie and an additional co-conspirator obtained fraudulent COVID-19 relief loans from Cross River Bank and the U.S. Small Business Administration for “various purported businesses.” 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.

The company, JAG Investments, in fact had no employees and did not report paying any wages or withholding federal income tax from employees during the 2019 tax year.

He paid the co-conspirator a kickback for his help with the applications, prosecutors said, amounting to about 27% of the loan. That same day, he made several searches on YouTube:

“ppp loan audit”

“ppp loan how to pay myself”

“what can PPP loan be used for.”

Prosecutors said Gillespie then hired a payroll services provider to make payments with the PPP funds to purported employees, which included Gillespie’s friends, associates and himself, to substantiate a request for the loan to be forgiven. About $60,000 in “sham” payroll payments were made, prosecutors said. He also used some of the loan funds to purchase and rehabilitate real estate in Baltimore and pay down personal debts. Prosecutors said he didn’t make any payments to Cross River Bank in connection with the loan.

Sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 9 in U.S. District Court in Baltimore.