TALLAHASSEE – The state lawmaker who sponsored the controversial law critics contact “Don’t Say Homosexual” has been indicted on prices of defrauding a federal coronavirus mortgage software for modest businesses, officers claimed Wednesday.
Federal prosecutors mentioned Rep. Joe Harding, 35, illegally received or tried using to receive a lot more than $150,000 from the Smaller Enterprise Administration in pandemic assist loans. He is being billed with two counts of wire fraud, two counts of dollars laundering and two counts of generating false statements.
Harding, a Republican, grew to become nationally identified this 12 months about his sponsorship of a regulation that forbids instruction on sexual orientation and gender identification in kindergarten by way of third grade, as effectively as content that is not considered age-proper.
“I want the public and my constituents to know that I totally repaid the personal loan and cooperated with investigators as asked for,” Harding reported in a published assertion.
The Republican speaker of the Florida House of Associates has briefly taken out Harding from his committee assignments in the Legislature.
A demo is scheduled for Jan. 11.
