The city of Miami can stop paying Commissioner Joe Carollo‘s legal bills right now. Let him pay for his own appeal with the funds from his political action committee.
Carollo, who has spent more than $2 million of the taxpayers’ money defending himself from a federal lawsuit he lost Thursday, has a neat $1,380,295 sitting in the bank account for his Miami First PAC. If he wants to appeal the jury verdict — which granted $63.5 million in damages to two Little Havana businessmen who were retaliated against for supporting Carollo’s opponent in 2017 — let Carollo put his money where his big mouth is.
The city (read: taxpayers) isn’t necessarily responsible for the judgement, though the attorneys for Bill Fuller and Martin Pinilla could argue that city officials conspired with Carollo to carry out his illegal orders. At least taxpayers should not be on the hook for legal fees again!
Read related: Jury says Miami’s Joe Carollo abused power to violate 1st Amendment rights
It wouldn’t be the first time Carollo uses PAC funds to pay for legal fees. In 2018, Miami First paid Ben Kuehne — who is still his attorney on the current case — $28,000 to fight off the residency challenge from the 2017 opponent, who came within 252 votes in the runoff. Kuehne got another Miami First check for $1,000 in May of 2020, according to the campaign finance documents.
Certainly the $1.4 million Carollo has in hand — which he was probably saving for a delusional mayoral bid — can fund an appeal.
Granted, he hasn’t raised any PAC funds since October of 2021. But he can always reach out to his pals to make new or further donations if they want to support his legal maneuvers.
Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla, for example, who said the jury verdict is such a “miscarriage of judgement,” can give from his PAC to the Carollo defense fund PAC.
Of course, ADLP only has $660K in hand for his own delusional mayoral run, so he may not.
Miami’s Joe Carollo has $1.4 million in PAC to fund any appeal of jury verdict added by Ladra on
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