Miami-Dade County Commissioner Daniella Levine Cava, who is expected to win her re-election bid without much trouble, is thought of as the soft-spoken, bespectacled progressive who starts many of her sentences with an apology and stays away from negative politics.
But to Ran Gimeno and his family, she is “a monster.”
Gimeno and his husband, Justin Polga, have been embroiled in a legal business battle with the commissioner’s husband for almost two years and say the Cavas have maligned and harassed them — so far as to stalk their then 8-year-old son.
“It’s psychological warfare,” Gimeno told Ladra. “They have made our lives miserable.”
He said that at one point, Dr. Robert Cava and an employee went to their son’s Spanish school on Kendall Drive to 
take photographs and were actually chased out into the parking lot when the administrator started asking them questions. “How the hell did they even know where my son’s Spanish school is?”
Polga took Cava to court to get out of the non-compete … and voila, he won his case. Or partially, anyway. Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Bronwyn Miller would not throw it out completely, but he agreed that the restrictions went too far.
“The scope and breadth of the restrictive covenant, as it fails to limit its application to identifiable patients, create an unnecessary restraint on trade, thus, under Florida law, must be more narrowly construed, rather than invalidated,” Miller wrote in his July 2017 ruling.
Dr. Cava wanted Polga to be unable to do business within a five mile radius for two years. But that included assisting patients who were to be admitted to area hospitals within that distance, like Baptist and South Miami — which are where Polga is accredited — or teaching or advertising. The judge said he definitely could assist his patients with admittance to those hospitals and assist patients at those hospitals who are not current or former patients of Cava’s.
Polga could also teach anyone except current or former patients of Cava’s. And the judge only found that the non-compete on advertising applied specifically to targeting an audience within a five mile radius. But an ad in the Herald or on the internet would be okay, Miller said.
However, the case really got ugly outside of court, Gimeno said. And he has the police reports from four different municipalities to prove it.
According to one police report from Coral Gables, Gimeno went to the station about 5 p.m. Feb. 21 to report “he felt he was being stalked.
“A man by the name of Mr. Robert Cava and his wife Mrs. Daniella Cava had been following him, his husband Justin 
Polga and their son Jacob Polga,” reads the report. “He, his husband and his son have seen Mr. and Mrs. Cava on several occasions at different locations, such as the Gulliver Academy that his son attends, which is located at 12595 SW 57th Avenue, as well as the St. Thomas Episcopal Parish School, located at 5692 North Kendall Dr.”
The report also says that Polga had seen the Cavas at Doctor’s Hospital, where he works, and that both Dr. Cava and the commissioner ride their bikes down the street they live on in Pinecrest.
“Mr. Gimeno says he feels as if it is no coincidence that he, his husband and his son continually see Mr. and Mrs. Cava at their son’s school and at their jobs,” reads the police report. “Mr. Gimeno expressed concern for his safety as well as the safety of his family.”
This report was filed after they got a call from Gulliver stating that Jacob “had been behaving differently because, as he reported to a counselor, ‘a bad man is following me.'” The boy was taken out of school that day.
Gimeno said that they were also harassed by Commissioner Levine Cava at the annual St. Thomas Episcopal Alumni 5K Run, where they had sponsored a table benefiting Breakthrough Miami. He said the commissioner “approached us as we were speaking among a group of fellow attendees/sponsors, including heat of schools for Gulliver Schools. She attempted to intimidate us in public.”
This was a month after a 400-guest function at the new University of Miami Lennar Foundation Medical Center, where Dr. Cava “approached us as we were speaking among a small group of fellow attendees. He forced himself into our personal space and attempted to intimidate us in public. We did not engage with him.”
Furthermore, Gimeno said that Commissioner Cava is using her influence to try to get their attorney, who teaches art time at the University of Miami, fired from her UM gig.
Gimeno — who told Ladra that Commissioner Levine Cava also approached and berated him and his son at an Apple store — said he and Polga did file a compaint with the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust, which dismissed it. And Chris Brown, an attorney for Dr. Cava, says that the commissioner has nothing to do with the lawsuit and that Polga and Gimeno simply do not have a case for harassment.
“If they did not want to be unnerved by a county commissioner, they probably should not have made her a witness in his case against her husband,” Brown said.
Really? That invites harassment?
Reached over the weekend, the commissioner said she had nothing to do with the legal battle. “I’m doing everything in my power to stay out of his business,” Levine Cava told Ladra. “I’m not involved in the lawsuit.”
She said that she has had “no contact” with Polga and Gimeno or their son. “Twice I have laid eyes on this man,” she said. Once was when she gave a proclamation to a medical group and another time was when she was at the Apple store and Gimeno came in, she said. “And he came up to me! I avoided him. I left right away.”
Levine Cava also said that no police officer from any agency has ever interviewed her. “Anyone can call the police and file a report,” Levine Cava said. “This has nothing to do with me. This is really a person who is desperate for attention.”
Desperate for attention? What attention have they gotten, besides, well, mine now? And why?
“Of course, I’m sure Gulliver wanted the attention. My son had to go to a psychologist for the attention,” Gimeno said.
Levine Cava insists that neither she nor her husband have been to Gimeno’s son’s schools.
A bunch of people, including someone from the Step by Step Spanish school and someone from St. Thomas Episcopal Church, have been subpoenaed for a motion of contempt that Cava has filed against Polga for apparently advertising within the five-mile radius he was supposed to stay out of.
As part of the discovery, there is a photograph taken of Dr. Polga’s pamphlets on a stand on a table. Inside the school’s front office.
Old story about Daniella Levine Cava paints ugly picture of harassment added by Ladra on
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I heard she uses personal emails with staff and others to conduct county business business and discuss policy out of the sunshine. My friend said they had to use her gmail account to do their employee evaluations.
How do we get that uncovered? You would think she would have learned from her idol Hillary Clinton?
It’s true—all of it! The Cavas have taken Miami-Dade County and District 8 for a ride and have no boundaries. Having worked closely with the commissioner (regretfully), her web of lies is well-known across all of us who have worked with her and we are personally and professionally threatened should we tell anyone outside of her orbit the truth about anything. More people need to come forward and expose these shysters once and for all. The family involved are victims and their child pays the price for their continued harassment, public humiliation, and abuse of power.
I thought Daniela’s husband was an accountant? Nonetheless, Cava is the best of the 13 County Commissioners.
She has only laid eyes on him twice? That’s a bold face lie. How can she say this? She could have refuted this in many different way, but to say that she only laid eyes on him twice is laughable.
Those of us involved in the community can tell you that she has definitely been to functions where Polga/Gimeno have been in the room.
She seems to be growing bigger and bigger cojones when it comes to her lying.
Daniella also doesn’t like fat people/employees. It is well known.
Someone should look into her past at Human Services Coalition which had to switch its name to Catalyst Miami. Daniella received sanctions from the state for not paying her workers. Her scheme was often to work interns way past the hours which she would actually pay them.
She also has been known to pay employees with gas cards in lieu of money for campaign work, if they were not legally elligible to work in this country.
She isn’t the fairy godmother. Her position has benefited her late mother-in-law’s real estate development company, her brother-in-law’s real estate development company, and her cousin’s real estate development company. Development is a lot easier in the county when you have someone on the dais.
Good, courageous, work.
What was the pre-existing professional relationship, if any, between the doctors?
Sounds like an abuse of power by Dr Cava.
This is such BS. What is Levine-Cava accused of? Riding a bike? These big men are scared of a 5-foot-tall woman? All you have here is the word of two disgruntled locos against the only honest politician in town. They filed 5 police reports and the police ignored all of them. That tells you something. If her husband is stalking the kid, why did he take pictures of pamphlets? Maybe it had more to do with the non-compete lawsuit than some sort of psycho conspiracy? There’s a reason Levine-Cava has a reputation for being soft-spoken and polite—She is! This is a totally unsubstantiated smear-job. I used to think Ladra was a decent reporter, if right-wing, but this is ridiculous. What a hack. I will never read this garbage blog again.