Former Florida lawmaker Joseph Harding has pleaded responsible to federal fraud costs associated to COVID-19 aid funds. The 35-year-old is scheduled for sentencing in July.

Phelan M. Ebenhack/AP

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Phelan M. Ebenhack/AP

Former Florida lawmaker Joseph Harding has pleaded responsible to federal fraud costs associated to COVID-19 aid funds. The 35-year-old is scheduled for sentencing in July.

Phelan M. Ebenhack/AP

A former Florida lawmaker who sponsored a invoice dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” law by critics has pleaded responsible to fraudulently acquiring COVID-19 aid funds.

Joseph Harding entered a responsible plea on Tuesday in federal court docket in the Northern District of Florida to 1 rely of wire fraud, one rely of cash laundering and one rely of constructing false statements, in accordance with court docket information.

Harding faces as much as 35 years in jail, together with a most of 20 years on the wire fraud cost. A sentencing listening to is scheduled for July 25 on the federal courthouse in Gainesville.

The former Republican lawmaker shot to notoriety final 12 months as one of many sponsors of a controversial Florida law that outlawed the dialogue of sexuality and gender in public college lecture rooms from kindergarten by grade 3.

The laws became a blueprint for similar laws in additional than a dozen different conservative states.

“This bill is about protecting our kids, empowering parents and ensuring they have the information they need to do their God-given job of raising their child,” Harding mentioned when Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the bill into law final March.

Critics from Democrats to LGBTQ teams took to calling it the “Don’t Say Gay” legislation and condemned Republicans for chilling speech in faculties.

In December, a federal grand jury returned an indictment towards Harding, 35, who was accused of lying on his applications to the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program, which gave out loans to companies impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. He resigned from Florida’s House of Representatives in the future later.

Harding fraudulently obtained greater than $150,000 from the Small Business Administration, parts of which he transferred to a financial institution and used to make a bank card fee, prosecutors mentioned.

In his bio on the Florida House Republicans website, Harding is described as a “serial entrepreneur” who began a number of companies associated to “boarding and training horses, real estate development, home construction, and landscaping.”

He was first elected to public workplace when he received the state House seat in November 2020.