Only in Miami can you snatch someone’s phone out of their hands in front of the city commission, city manager, the sergeant-at-arms, and a room full of witnesses — and still get your two minutes at the podium for public comment.
Maybe it’s only because the phone-snatcher was Maria “Beba” Sardiña Mann, who is protected as president of the Crazy Joe Pollo Carollo Fan Club. Or maybe it’s because her victim was Miami activist and award-winning filmmaker Billy Corben, who’s been documenting dysfunction at City Hall longer than four of the five commissioners have been up on the dais.
Because you know if it was reversed, this would be a different story. And it would end with someone in jail.
It’s all captured on video (posted below, courtesy of Corben).
And it was ugly enough for Miami Police to open an investigation to determine if Sardiña Mann committed a “robbery by snatching” when she grabbed Corben’s cellphone. Corben filed a complaint the very same day it happened and Ladra was able to confirm it has been transferred from the Det. Jeremy Kluman in the violent crimes unit to someone in robbery.
Should be an open and shut case.
The Silver Bluff resident confessed to taking his camera, depriving him of his property, later in the meeting. “No, that was not assault,” she said, responding to Corben or someone calling her out for her physical overreaction. “I took his camera. I took his camera. That’s not assault.”
Just robbery, then?
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The little scuffle took place on May 30 at a sunshine meeting called by Commissioner Miguel Gabela about the weaponizing of government departments after Commissioner Joe Carollo tried to get the city to investigate alleged code violations on his property. Corben noticed Mann as she yapped at activist Thomas Kennedy in line for the podium and started recording it. Corben knows when something is about to go down. It’s an instinct.

But so did Mann. At first, she smiles and waves hello. But then she reaches out — with surprising speed and strength — to intentionally grab the phone he is using to document the corruption and slam it on the dais nearby. She may or may not have struck City Clerk Todd Hannon with it by accident.
Mann was afraid, and rightfully so, that she’d be the next star of a Because Miami web video.
“He has a tendency, just as he has done here with the chicken, to mock people,” she said of Corben, when she was allowed to speak after the scuffle. “I will get an attorney and sue him for harassment.”
This was after she was escorted out and let back in to make public comments. That’s strange because people have been ejected from City Hall for the whole day for much less. Ask Kennedy.
Between crocodile tears and excuses, Sardiña Mann insulted Corben and Kennedy, using Carollo’s own language to try to belittle them, and praised her commissioner, which she is indebted to for getting illegal street closures in her neighborhood and trying to get them again (they were removed after the county took the city to court).
“What he has done for us is unbelievable,” Sardiña Mann said. And she is right about one thing. It is, indeed, unbelievable that Carollo would violate the county law to make her neighborhood a gated one.
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She also took aim at the other commissioners.
“I don’t see anyone here talking about the things that Mr. Carollo does. All I see is the same people speaking, same time, every time, at the commission before it becomes a circus. Beginning with our elected officials that act, appear like immature children. This is a professional post that you are elected to have, not to sit here and completely derail everything for little snaps at each other. Please, let’s all grow up.”
Yeah, because nothing screams “mature adult behavior” like a weepy defense of a wife-beating habitual violator of the first amendment who abuses political power and a scolding of the very people who just witnessed your possibly criminal tantrum.
Beba, the circus called. They want their clown back.
“Carollo has done more than anybody has done for my district, which is District 3, which has been totally neglected,” Mann said.
You know what else has been neglected? The law. Fairness. Because if that situation had been reversed, if Corben or Kennedy had snatched the phone out of Mann’s hand, they would have been arrested on the spot. Carollo would have insisted on them being cuffed in public and we would have had a perp walk and official statements on social media.
Instead, crickets. Nobody has come out to condemn Beba’s exaggerated outburst turned attempted robbery.
Corben did not want to answer too many questions because it is, or was, an “open and ongoing investigation.” Witnesses were still being interviewed. But he did say that however many times the two may disagree, “we can’t put our hands on each other.
“We have to draw a line somewhere,” he told Political Cortadito. “She crossed that line.”
A Miami New Times story published a comment from Corben: “I was there to engage our government as a citizen and cover the meeting as a documentarian and journalist. My phone is the tool I was using to exercise my First Amendment as a member of the press and keep our community informed. It was out of line and a possible crime for the suspect to violently deprive me of that tool.”
He was just doing his job, documenting shenanigans at City Hall, and particularly Carollo’s hypocrisy. And now he’s documenting potential robbery, courtesy of Carollo’s biggest fan.
Sardiña Mann did not return multiple calls for comment. But that police interview is going to be a fascinating read.
Ladra also can’t help but wonder if she will be at Thursday’s commission meeting. Keep a firm grip on your phones.

The post Scuffle at Miami City Hall turns into robbery case vs Joe Carollo superfan appeared first on Political Cortadito.

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