Doral City Manager Joe Carollo might want to get a bodyguard or some protective custody from the FBI, maybe.
That’s because he went on a verbal rampage Tuesday night and threw everybody under the bus in an effort to defend himself against allegations of acting unprofessionally with a business associate and friend of Mayor Luigi Boria, who tried to fire him last week but didn’t have the votes.
Allegations included ties between Boria and both former Sweetwater Mayor Manny “Maraña” Maroño and former Miami Lakes Mayor Michael “Muscles” Pizzi — both of whom were arrested in August on federal bribery and extortion charges — and to lobbyist Jorge Forte, arrested in the same scheme to defraud the government as Maroño, and to some nefarious towing contract connected with Maroño and former (read: disgraced for being a racist) State Rep. Ralph Arza, who helped Boria with his campaign and is his “right hand man,” and to some alleged backroom lease scam by Absentee Ballot Queen Sasha Tirador for Boria’s campaign headquarters when she ran his mayoral bid last year.
Oh, throw in some Venezuelan government-backed thugs, “narco-Chavistas” and a suitcase full of money to the Colombian FARC.
Long live Joe Carollo!
What took him so long?
The former Miami mayor and one-time commissioner had said last week, after Boria’s bungled move to oust him, that he was going to talk at Tuesday’s special meeting and bring out… what was it?, the good, the bad and the ugly? It was about 3 1/2 hours of mostly bad and ugly. Last Wednesday, Boria accused his one-time confidante of unprofessional behavior, taking a week vacation to without letting anyone know and of snooping into emails and running “investigations.” But the majority of the council gave the city manager a 3-2 vote of confidence, with only Councilwoman Sandra Ruiz siding with Boria.
Coincidentally, Boria and Ruiz were the only ones who wanted to shut Carollo up Tuesday. He could have gone on for another hour, he said. Which means two. He said he’s already reported all these matters to the proper authorities and sounds awfully credible. Even though he’s known to be a little radical now and then — hence, the “Crazy Joe” nickname he got in Miami — Carollo is a nerd when it comes to law enforcement and documentation. You gotta love that about him. He is said by fans to have a zero tolerance for corruption. And I have been proud to stand next to him in the past denouncing absentee ballot fraud and illegal maquinitas.
But, then, how come it took him so long to come forward with this information? Meetings and discussions about these shenanigans held in March and April, requests by the mayor to have him squash the arrest of some friend of some business associate, allegations that Boria pressured the city manager to hire Pizzi as the city attorney, details about the land deal between Boria’s children and Juan Carlos Tovar, the Venezuelan businessman that Carollo suggests is in cahoots with the Chavez government and who was arrested last week and charged with filing a false police report alleging that “Crazy Joe” shoved him, a conspiracy by the mayor and Tovar to defame him… well, that one is new. But the other incidents and accusations have been accumulating for months. Is Carollo only coming forth now because his job was on the line?
He said Tuesday he didn’t need the job that badly. And we saw that Carollo bravado again.
“I don’t care what anybody wants to say against me or threatens me with… this job does not pay me enough, there is not enough money in Venezuela and Miami that would make me me turn my head on these kinds of individuals coming in,” he said, regarding the “narco-Chavistas” that he accuses Boria of being in bed with.
“If it meant that I had to be a lapdog to a mayor and let all these things go on and look the other way, they got the wrong chump,” Carollo said, and now he was referring to the whole of the pie.
Boria called the allegations false, or at least “exaggerated,” and tried to stop Carollo a few times.
“This is not about city business,” Boria said.
“Yes, it is,” said Carollo, who was undaunted, but calm and polite, in a scathing sort of way. “These are people you are bringing to do business in the city of Doral.” He was talking about the associate of Tovar’s who was arrested on a probation violation and his original 2011 arrest for possession with intent and possession of firearms.
Boria said the accusations was a defamation attempt. But he looked nervous as a chihuahua among wolves and Carollo, who is kinda nerdy about law enforcement and a stickler for documentation, wouldn’t be talking this much if he couldn’t back it up.
And if even half of what he has said is true, Doral won’t need a recall, as one woman suggested from the audience on Tuesday night. Because Boria will be recalled by the governor or the State Attorney’s Office.
Joe Carollo goes off the reservation, naming names in Doral added by Ladra on
View all posts by Ladra →