One question we receive often is whether Mike Shirley is actually guilty of Honest Services Fraud for charging a lot for his services as a consultant.
First of all, Honest Services Fraud is one of those "Swiss Army crimes" designed to fit any circumstance. Or at least the U.S. Supreme Court agrees, having warned in 2023 that this relatively new category of crime is ripe for abuse.
That didn't stop federal prosecutors from using it, anyway. And as anyone following this page knows by now, Shirley is serving a seven-year sentence in federal prison because of it.
Prosecutors resorted to this vague crime when no direct evidence of a bribe (the original charge in the indictment) was ever produced. According to former Austin City Council member Mackenzie Kelly's article in The Federalist:
"Federal prosecutors then claimed that Shirley, who was never a government employee, acted as a 'de facto public official' simply because he added standard line-item markups for subcontracted work and overhead for his consulting as part of his work for [then-Seminole County, Fla., Tax Collector Joel] Greenberg. But that practice is entirely legal and routine in professional services.
"Even the trial judge reportedly said, according to a letter from Shirley, 'Sounds like capitalism to me.'"
Shirley's firm was handling public relations for Greenberg at the time, among other communications services. According to a previous article in PR News, consultants often charge rates that are "pegged to the market" -- nearly a third of PR agencies calculate their billing rates by relying on "whatever the market will bear," according to a survey. A majority of respondents (65%) said they mark-up rebillables.
Federal prosecutors accused Shirley himself of doing little work (a claim Shirley denies as he managed the day-to-day affairs of his small consulting firm) and charged $12,500 per month for things such as printing services, media relations, advertising, mail house tasks, etc. Prosecutors insisted Shirley got the lucrative deal as part of a "kickback scheme" -- yet this bribery theory fell apart during trial.
It's easily Google-able to see that PR consultants for government offices can charge between $80 and $250 per hour for their services, or on a monthly basis $4,000 to $28,000.
Perhaps the biggest irony: the DOJ itself has caps for approved consultant rates -- $650 per day (or $81.25 per hour) unless a special justification is provided. That's well-within what Shirley's company charged at $12,500/month.
None of this was brought up during Shriley's stint with Greenberg's office between 2016 and 2019, Shirley said. It wasn't until March 2021 that Greenberg suggested Shirley had done something wrong -- back when Greenberg was eager to throw anyone and everyone under the bus.
It's clear that Shirley was not a government official, was charging under what even the DOJ allows for in consulting fees, and nobody addressed the fees issue while he was working for the office. If what Shirley's firm charged is extravagant then rules should be adopted at the county or state level. Throwing an honest man and successful entrepreneur in federal prison for seven years over it is absurd.