A county judge last week dismissed the defamation lawsuit filed by Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago against Actualidad Media Group for a Spanish-language morning radio broadcast where veteran journalist Roberto Rodriguez Tejera mentioned an investigation by the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust into the mayor’s lack of truthfulness regarding his conflict of interests in the annexation of Little Gables.
The ruling is important because it sends a clear message to Lago that he cannot silence his critics.
The 4-minute broadcast in question aired in February of 2023, before the city elections that April, and had then-candidate Commissioner Ariel Fernandez on as a guest. Among the things discussed was the Ethics Commission inquiry, which Lago’s lawyer argued was (1) not an “investigation” and (2) confidential and, therefore, Rodriguez-Tejera couldn’t possibly have known about it.
The crux of their case is that the host, or the station, acted with malice by disclosing an investigation that, yeah, sure, existed on paper but was not yet public and was called something else. Really? Isn’t that called news?
Read related: Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago may have conflict of interest in Little Gables
A “preliminary inquiry” can be called a probe, an inquiry, an audit, an inspection, a review, a study, a survey, an analysis and, certainly, an investigation. All you need is a good thesaurus, which all journalists have. The function is the same: The agency is looking into the allegations made.
In this case, the allegations were that Lago knowingly made a false statement when he dramatically signed a sworn affidavit during a live public commission meeting in August 2023 proclaiming that neither he nor any of his immediate family had any special interest in the potential annexation of Little Gables, a square of unincorporated Miami-Dade on the city’s northern edge. At the time, Lago’s lobbyist brother, Carlos Lago was registered to lobby for Titan Development Partners, owners of the mobile home park in Little Gables, which is the largest property in the area and already has plans drawn up for a posh project, once it’s part of the City Beautiful, tentatively called “Moorish Village.”
But Lago’s affidavit conveniently left out the words “siblings, half-siblings and step-siblings,” even though they are included in the language from the county’s conflict of interest and ethics ordinance municode, which is what he said he used to define immediate family. Those were the only words omitted.
Eventually, the Ethics Commission found that Lago “did not knowingly make a false statement.” But they can be and have been wrong. That omission was not a concidence. And the Ethics Commission can mince words and be political all they want, using “review” or “inquiry” to soften the blow of an investigation of a public figure, but that’s not their job. And it’s not the journalists’ job, either.
It was an investigation, in every sense of the word. There was sworn testimony, witness interviews and an affidavit from the city attorney and reviewed by someone with the title of “investigator.” It should have gone further because, frankly, Lago’s deep desire for annexation against the firefighters recommendation and the wishes of most Gables residents (as we will learn Tuesday) — to the point where he has fronted annexation-friendly candidates — has been, well, alarming.
Anyway, that was in October of 2023 that the Ethics Commission came to that conclusion. The broadcast that Lago said defamed him aired Feb. 27, 2023, more than a week after the complaint was filed by “concerned individuals” and the investigation began, which his attorneys admitted. The Political Cortadito story was published four days later on March 3. Something called The Gables Beacon published something questioning whether Lago may have committed perjury on March 4. Carlos Lago withdrew his lobbyist registration for Titan Development on March 6, 2023.
So, basically, after they were caught.
There are three things that one needs to prove in order to win a defamation case: (1) that the person making or publishing the statement had full knowledge that it was false and did not care; (2) that it was made or published with actual malice, which means an intention to do harm, and (3) that it actually hurt the reputation of the person or entity suing.
Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Joe Perkins found that Lago’s lawyers could not prove malice.
Read related: Under fire, Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago sues Cuban radio station for libel
“Actual malice requires more than a departure from reasonable journalistic standards,” the ruling states, quoting a 2021 precedent against a local TV station (the station won). “A failure to investigate, standing on its own, does not indicate the presence of actual malice. Instead, there must be some showing that the defendant purposefully avoided further investigation with the intent to avoid the truth.”
“Applying this standard to Plaintiff’s Complaint, the Court agrees that Plaintiff’s allegations, even after viewing all inferences in a light most favorable to Plaintiff, are legally insufficient to establish actual malice.”
Lago won’t ever return Ladra’s phone calls but he has 10 days to refile and his attorney hinted, in a quote to the Miami Herald, that he might just do that. “So that journalism motivated by malice and a reckless disregard for the truth is held accountable,” Mason Portnoy told the paper of record.
Perhaps he failed to read Judge Perkins’ ruling.
Ladra would venture to say that the initial defamation complaint filed in January also fails to meet the other two requirements.
Rodriguez-Tejera wouldn’t put anything on the air he knows is false. Part of the plaintiff’s “evidence” was that articles about the investigation — both in Political Cortadito and something called Gables Beacon — came out after the Actualidad 1040 AM broadcast. But what they don’t realize is that we have a lot of the same sources. And it turned out they were good sources, huh?
There’s no malice here on Actualidad’s part or Rodriguez-Tejera’s part or Ladra’s. What there is are legit questions about Lago’s obvious family ties to Little Gables interests. And Lago doesn’t like questions. His lawsuit was simply an attempt to silence the radio journalist and anybody else listening — to raise the saber of litigation and make his critics run away and/or shut up and hide.
Last week’s ruling was in response to an anti-SLAPP motion, which protects the freedom of the press, to dismiss his case.
But Lago would also lose on the third requirement for defamation, which is that it hurt his reputation. Lago’s reputation has been hurt far worse by these very conflicts of interests, his side gigs with benefits, his own egotistic, self-aggrandizing speeches, the way he snaps at residents and business owners and, most notably, his public hissy fits.
He was probably having one when this ruling came out.
Judge dismisses Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago’s defamation lawsuit added by Ladra on
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