A Broward County jury found Joe Carollo liable for violating 2 businessmen’s (Bill Fuller owner of the Ball & Chain night club/restaurant and Martin Pinilla) 1st Amendment rights.
Jurors ordered Carollo to pay $8.6 million in compensatory damages and $25.7 million in punitive damages. They ordered him to pay Pinilla $7.3 million in compensatory damages and $21.9 million in punitive damages. That totals roughly $63.5 million in damages.
What did Joe Carollo do? exactly? When Carollo ran for Miami Commisioner in 2017, Bill Fuller and Martin Pinilla both supported Carollo’s opponent, Alfonso "Alfie" Leon for Miami's District 3 city commission seat. Carollo won and then, according to Fuller and Pinilla said they were subjected to retaliatory inspections, trumped up violations at their businesses to the point where one business was shut down and the other relocated out of the district. There are allegations of Carollo trolling valet parking lots at 1:30am.
The club owner's previously unreported allegations are startling: He told the ethics commission that Carollo repeatedly used city code-enforcement employees to file bogus violations against Fuller's properties — and even tried to shut down Fuller's company Christmas party last year by falsely claiming the business owner was handing out "illegal drugs."
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Joe Carollo, you know, the guy who allegedly threw a tea pot at his wife in 2001 and left a golf ball sized welt on her head, is a current Miami Commisioner for the 3rd District. He has been Miami’s Mayor twice. He’s a pre-Trumpian bully. Miami continues to vote this guy into office after a time out now and then. Then, he runs for office again, everyone forgot what crazy thing he did last time or they think he changed and here we go again. The first thing he did after winning his election in 2017 was to pre-emptively get permits for “Viernes Pequeña Habana” in Domino Park Plaza for every last Friday of every month for something like 18 months. Fuller was a member of the Board for Viernes Culturales, a nonprofit that, on the last Friday of each month, would put on a festival at Domino Park Plaza.
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They had never needed a permit for these festivals before Joe Carollo became Commissioner. Those festvals are now on the 3rd Friday of every month, thanks to the local despot “Crazy Joe” or “Loco Joe”.
You would think Miami wouldn’t like corrupt strong man politicians, but they do. It makes no sense to me, but apparently it makes perfect sense to the Miami voter. Maybe it’s in the messaging. Keep it simple.
The City of Miami is paying for Carollo’s defense in this case, but the appeal process is going to be expensive. Maybe, that could change if the tax-payers of Miami show up at the Commissioner meetings and ask that Joe take responsibility for his behavior.