Former State Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla, who just lost special election for county commission in June on the heels of a loss in a special Senate race, has moved from his room in his parent’s house in Little Havana to a riverfront condo next to Sewell Park so he can run for city commission next year.
Dean DLP’s new digs on the 18th floor of the Terrazas Riverpark Village Condo, at 1861 NW S River Dr., is a 967-square-foot, 2-bedroom, 2-bath unit purchased in 2016 for $345,000 by Josefa Ortas, whose mailing address is in Madrid.
It also happens to be in Senate District 37 and Florida House District 111, but it is doubtful that anyone in the Diaz de la Portilla family wants to go up again against Sen. Jose Javier Rodriguez, who has beaten both Alex and big bro Miguel. And it’s hard to believe ADLP would make este sacrificio more than two years before the next state race.
Besides, las malas lenguas say he is definitely eyeing the city seat so he can conspire with BFF Commissioner Joe Carollo, who he campaigned for and supports. Carollo also campaigned with ADLP in city of Miami senior housing complexes and is reportedly under investigation because of allegations he used city resources trying to elect his friend.
Read related: Gimenez family hit in Senate campaign… ADLP’s wag the dog
But the burning question is: Does Alex really live at Terrazas, where the typical rent for a 2/2 on a high floor — like the one with this view in this picture — is $2,100 a month, or is he pulling a Carollo?
To remind readers, Carollo wants us all to believe that he lives in a small Brickell apartment and not in his mansion in Coconut Grove. His residency was challenged in court by the second place finisher who sought to prove that Carollo did not live in the district for a year before qualifying, as required.
The judge ruled in favor of Carollo, who signed the lease for the Brickell Station Lofts unit on Sept. 22, 2016. The deadline to qualify for the ballot in that election was Sept. 23, 2017.
ADLP changed his voter’s registration address on Sept. 15. The qualifying period for the Nov. 5, 2019 Miami city election is from Sept. 6 to Sept. 21.

Read Full Story

A mailer landed in Miami mailboxes this week from Joe Carollo‘s electioneering communications organization, Miami First, telling voters that Mayor Xavier Suarez is being dishonest about the strong mayor referendum and asking them to say no and punch 383.
Ladra wasn’t surprised that it broke election law. ECOs, similar to a political action committees but with different rules, can refer to a candidate or issue only “without expressly advocating the election or defeat.” Seems that “say no to” and adding the punch number advocates defeat.
Read related: Mayor Carlos Gimenez clan involved in Joe Carollo lawsuit vs strong mayor
But it’s no surprise, first, because it’s Joe Carollo, who cares very little about those technicalities and, second, because his alleged mailer consultant is Tania Cruz, the daughter-in-law of Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez, who is relatively new at this.
Yet, for someone who makes stupid mistakes, the girl is already banking, getting more than half of the $188,130 spent by Miami First, with $101,585 for consulting and mailers. Add that to the $60K the wife of lobbyist mayoral son CJ Gimenez got from the campaign account, first reported on Political Cortadito last month, and it’s a total of $161,000 so far from Carollo to Cruz. Which, yeah, sure, she may have to split with former Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla, who seems to have taught her a thing or two, but it’s still a good amount.
Read related: Joe Carollo files late campaign report with $60K to mayor’s daughter in law 
And she ain’t the only one in her family on Carollo’s payroll. Barby Rodriguez Gimenez, the other daughter-in-law married to the bad boy son, got paid $14,269 for “consulting” also. If you add it all up, the Gimenez clan has been paid at least $175,000 by Carollo since last year.
It breaks down like this:

$10,000 for Barby Rodriguez on Jan. 10 for consulting
$37,384.05 to Tania Cruz on Nov. 18 for consulting
$15,758.52 to Tania Cruz on Nov. 11 for consulting
$17,641.80 to Tania Cruz on Oct. 25 for mailers
$17,641.80 to Tania Cruz on Oct. 21 for mailers
$13,159.30 to Tania Cruz on Oct. 7, 2017 for mailers
$4,269 to Barby Rodriguez on Sept. 27, 2017 for consulting

Cruz also got bank from the Ultra Music Festival organizers, who hired her as a lobbyist so they could get a meeting with Carollo, who ended up stabbing them in the back, maybe so he could do CJ a favor.
Read related: Ultra out for Formula 1 could be Joe Carollo nod to CJ Gimenez
But don’t worry. This hasn’t been a one way street. The cash flowed the other way when Gimenez paid Carollo $6,000 a month for years through his PAC. We never knew what that was for. Maybe he was sewing the seeds for this.
And you know there’s more coming. These figures are just through the last campaign report, which counts through Oct. 12. Miami First hasn’t shown any activity from May, when it collected $48,000 from development interests on two separate days. The last expenditure was to La Rue Management for $3,000 worth of more consulting.
We have to wait until the 19th to see next one with this mailer’s expenses on it.
And to see how much more the mayor’s daughter-in-law gets paid.

Read Full Story

Miami City Commissioner Joe Carollo is likened to Cuba’s Castro brothers and Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro in a lawsuit filed Thursday that claims he uses his office to exact revenge on his political enemies and seeks at least $2.5 million in punitive damages.
Bill Fuller and Martin Pinilla, who own the very popular Ball & Chain lounge and other properties along Calle Ocho and are photographed here with their attorney and tenants, claim in their demand for a jury trial that Carollo has “obliterated” their first amendment rights by “using the power and influence of his government office to engage in a campaign of harassment, retribution and retaliation” simply because they supported his opponent in the 2017 election.
“Carollo’s actions, designed to destroy plaintiff’s businesses and reputations, is pure political payback,” the lawsuit states. “Unchecked retaliation and political payback of this scale would lead the United States down the path of Cuba and Venezuela today.”
The main claim is that Carollo sics the police department, fire department and code enforcement on them for ludicrous and frivolous complaints. As the plaintiffs and their attorney set up for a press conference Thursday morning, a city employee snapped photos from the sidewalk.
The lawsuit also claims that Carollo is in violation of city charter which prohibits commissioners from directing city staff and that he has used city resources for his political vendetta specifically to:

Shut down a Christmas party for employees and tenants and their employees and families, a party that Fuller and Pinilla say city commissioners attended before.
Prevented use of the same shipping containers allowed in Wynwood and by the Miami River, almost destroying a family business operating a wildly popular restaurant called Sanguich.
Shut down the plaintiffs’ tenant Union Beer by sending police and code enforcement personnel to raid their anniversary party
Permanently shut down construction on a kiosk market the plaintiff had invested in after already obtaining city approval
Shut down the wildly popular Viernes Culturales because Fuller is chairman of the board of the non profit
Trespass on plaintiffs property and conduct illegal searches and government surveillance

The lawsuit also claims that Carollo makes anonymous noise complaints against Ball & Chain and has solicited neighbors to make complaints, has sicced code enforcement on the valet company and defamed the plaintiffs on radio, calling Fuller “el Padrino” and saying that he operates like a Godfather backed by Venezuelan criminals, which is a classic Carollo move.
“Carollo has also managed to amend key provisions of the Miami city code to target plaintiffs’ businesses,” the lawsuit states. “Carollo’s stated intention is to drive the plaintiffs out of business, even if he has to destroy the life savings and work of the businesses who rent from the plaintiffs.
“These are not mere allegations,” it continues, adding that there are text messages, emails, photos, videos and the testimony of city employees and one other commissioner to attest to the claims. Some of these are included as exhibits. Former Carollo Chief of Staff Steve Miro seems to be the star witness.
They also have Carollo’s big mouth, since he said he was the “new sheriff in town” and “I am the law.”
The lawsuit also uses the very same violation of free speech lawsuit that Carollo filed against former Doral Mayor Luigi Boria when he was fired as town manager.
It was filed against Carollo as an individual, not a commissioner, and said he should be personally liable for the thousands of dollars or millions that these businesses have lost.
He should also have to pay at least $2.5 million in punitive damages to prevent “such despicable conduct in the future.”

Read Full Story

Miami taxpayers could be on the hook for City Commissioner Joe Carollo‘s frivolous and ridiculous lawsuit against the mayor, city clerk and others to take the strong mayor referendum off the ballot. They could be billed for his political stunt.
The lawsuit was dismissed — practically laughed out of court — in an 18-page ruling Saturday by Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Miguel M. de la O, who said that Carollo’s arguments had no merit. Not a single one. He basically called Carollo a sore loser who, having lost the vote at the dais when the commission voted to put the question on the ballot, turned to the courts.
Read related: Judge calls Joe Carollo sore loser, rips apart strong mayor lawsuit
Carollo has 30 days to appeal, though in matters of elections the courts want things expedited and the fact he hasn’t appealed yet indicates he took his spanking hard. But whether he appeals or not, the legal costs incurred so far can be estimated at between $25,000 and $80,000, depending on how many attorneys he had “consulting” on it. That could include Tania Cruz, the daughter-in-law of Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez, who got an email exactly two minutes and three seconds after the court’s online system confirmed receiving the case from lead attorney Jesus Suarez.
Suarez, who works for the Genovese Joblove & Battista law firm, doesn’t work for free and someone is going to have to pay him for his work.
“No payments have been made at this time,” City Attorney Victoria Mendez told Ladra after I asked. Keywords: At this time. That doesn’t mean that he won’t be paid in the future.
Read related: Joe Carollo files late campaign report, with $60K for mayor’s daughter-in-law
And, in fact, he could be paid from city funds after all. Carollo filed the lawsuit as a city commissioner, not as a citizen or as a voter. The first line of his emergency complaint says so.
“Plaintiff/petitioner JOE CAROLLO, as an individual and as a commissioner in the City of Miami, Florida, sues Defendants/Respondents …” The keywords there are as a commissioner.
Que descarado! That’s what’s called trying to “achieve standing” so the city would be on the hook — meaning he would be making taxpayers would be funding this political feud.
Is he going to do this every time he loses a battle on the dais? Every time the other commissioners vote against him, is he going to take it to court and make taxpayers foot the bill?
That could get very expensive.

Read Full Story

A Miami-Dade judge on Saturday ripped apart, er, ruled against a lawsuit filed by Miami Commissioner Crazy Joe Carollo in an 18-page spanking, uh, decision that basically calls him a sore loser who ran to the court after he failed to get his way on the commission.
Carollo is against the strong mayor referendum that city commissioners voted to put on the ballot in August. He was joined by Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez, who has gone on TV and radio against the measure, so it’s a defeat for him as well.
“The essence of the matter before the court is that Commissioner Carollo opposes changing the governing structure of the City of Miami to a strong mayor form of government. In his role as City Commissioner he argued against the issue being presented to, and decided by, the voters in the form of a ballot referendum,” wrote 11th Circuit Court Judge Miguel M. de la O in a final summary judgement for Mayor Francis Suarez and the other defendants in Carollo’s stunt, er, legal challenge.
Read related: Gimenez clan involved in Joe Carollo lawsuit vs strong mayor
“He now asks this court to declare the referendum illegal for a number of reasons, none of which have merit,” the judge continued in his intro. “The question of how the City of Miami should be structured is at its core a political one. Therefore, Commissioner Carollo must rely on his powers of persuasion to convince the citizens of Miami as to the folly of a strong mayor form of government, if it is indeed folly.”
Wait, powers of persuasion? Who says a judge can’t be funny?
De la O didn’t let Crazy Joe use his “powers of persuasion” in court even though Carollo, in true form, “sought to take dozens of depositions, and subpoenaed in excess of 30 witnesses to the October 5, 2018 hearing, all of which this Court deemed unnecessary.”
In other words, nananina said the judge, cutting Crazy Joe off before he could start.
He lays into Crazy Joe and fails all of his counts on what apparently amounts to a frivolous and ridiculous lawsuit:

The ballot language is, indeed, abundantly clear and complete on the purpose of the referendum and not misleading, the judge said.
The petition signatures do not need to meet Miami-Dade standards that are not required by the city of Miami charter and, even if they did, the city commission placed the referendum on the ballot, not the petitions, so that is a moot point.
And the complaint about the pay formula is not only moot, because that’s not the purpose of the measure, it also “misses the mark,” wrote de la O. “First, there is in fact a pay formula now, it is whatever manner and amount the Mayor is currently paid. Commissioner Carollo’s counsel stated at the hearing that the Mayor’s salary is set at the discretion of the Commission. That is a pay formula. It may be purely discretionary, but a discretionary formula is no less a formula.”

In other words: “Duh.”
Was it intentionally ridiculous?
If not, this should be a huge embarrassment for the attorneys because the lawsuit apparently doesn’t have a single leg to stand on. The judge laughs at it throughout the ruling, says that a comparison to a Leon County case under appeal was “remarkably different” and pokes so many holes in it that it almost seems like it was intentional. Like a parody of a lawsuit.
Read related: Joe Carollo files late campaign report, with $60K to mayor’s daughter-in-law
If it is, this could be fraud. Ladra can’t help but wonder how much was paid to Jesus Suarez, the lawyer whose name it is under who filed it, and maybe also Tania Cruz, Mayor Carlos Gimenez’s daughter-in-law — the one who got paid $60,000 for “mailers” during the campaign. She was likely advising Carollo on the matter, as evidenced by an email from Suarez to both Tania Cruz and her husband CJ Gimenez two minutes after the lawsuit was filed. “Done,” it said.
The public also needs to know who paid for it?  Someone is paying Suarez, at the Genovese, Joblove & Battista law firm. Five other firm emails were ccd as was Carollo campaign attorney Benedict Kuehne. They are not doing this for free. Is Cruz making more from a political action committee? Maybe her Papi-in-law’s PAC this time?
When Ladra first asked City Attorney Victoria Mendez if the city had paid the attorney, she wrote back “No payments have been made at this time.” Which sounded like the city could be paying for this frivolous lawsuit sometime in the future. So I asked again and got the same answer. “There are no records responsive to your request. The City is not paying Mr. Suarez at this time,” she wrote again.
What does that mean?
Neither Carollo nor Suarez returned several calls.
Ladra challenges Joey Flechas or Doug Hanks (since the Gimenez clan is involved) to find out what this lawsuit really was. Payoff to someone for something? Propaganda maybe?
Because the one thing it’s apparently not is a legitimate legal challenge.

Read Full Story

People watching the City of Miami meeting last week were surprised when Commissioner Joe Carollo went with the majority and voted against the very contract he helped negotiate with Ultra Music Festival organizers, even after getting everything he demanded.
The three-day electronic music event was kicked out of Bayfront Park, its home the past 18 years, when commissioners voted Sept. 27 unanimously not to renew their contract for next year. They cited the noise and traffic bothering downtown residents as their prime concerns.
But in reality Carollo is just trying to trade in one noise and traffic nightmare for another: Formula One racing. He thinks that if he can appease the downtown residents on Ultra — there, I did that for you — then it will be easier to sell the Miami Grand Prix.
Read related: Joe Carollo files late campaign report, with $60K to mayor’s daughter-in-law
And he’s doing it for his new BFF, lobbyist CJ Gimenez, son of Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez. CJ represents Formula One racing interests.
But what people need to know is that its not apples for oranges.
Yes, the Formula 1 racing would likely not extend into the wee hours of the morning like Ultra does. But the noise is arguably worse and the traffic is still going to be a nightmare. And the agreement negotiated so far with the city manager provides far less rent to the city than Ultra, whose organizers had agreed to pay $2 million annually to the city for the three day use of the park, a demand Carollo had made.
Read related: Why is Joe Carollo on Mayor Carlos Gimenez’s camp’s payroll
But Carollo and the Gimenez clan have a very special relationship. It’s a relationship where Mayor Gimenez was paying him $6,000 a month through his political action committee — for what? nobody knows — and where Crazy Joe paid the mayor’s daughter-in-law Tania Cruz, an attorney, almost $60,000 for mailers and campaign work. Both CJ and Tania, photographed right at a 2017 campaign event, were very present during Carollo’s commission contest and Cruz helped represent him after Alfie Leon challenged his residency.
Yes, it was an anonymous vote to deny Ultra another year. But Carollo was the one who negotiated and brought the contract to the table. Was it sabotage? Did he bring a poison pill?
Why wouldn’t he make it easier for his pal CJ to get Formula One passed? Todo en familia.

Read Full Story