Joe Carollo pays Carlos Gimenez clan more than $175K in total

A mailer landed in Miami mailboxes this week from Joe Carollo‘s electioneering communications organization, Miami First, telling voters that Mayor Francis 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.

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.

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.

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.

Carlos Gimenez, Joe Carollo, strong mayor, Tania Cruz

Joe Carollo pays Carlos Gimenez clan more than $175K in total added by Ladra on October 16, 2018
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