Almost three months after it happened, the investigation into the alleged aggravated assault by Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago against City Manager Amos Rojas at City Hall has been closed — and sources say, no evidence wad found that there were any real threats of violence.
According to people on both sides of the June incident — and a city official who confirmed the “case was closed” — the Florida Department of Law Enforcement ended the investigation recently and no charges will be filed. Apparently, while the mayor allegedly took off his jacket, threw it on the floor and got into a fighting stance during a June 4 meeting with the city manager, detectives could not make the case that an actual threat had taken place.
Maybe Lago was just acting.
Read related: Coral Gables Internal Affairs check out mayor’s ‘assault’ incident at City Hall
But did anybody investigate the cause for the altercation? That might be more important. What set Lago off?
Ladra has heard from multiple City Hall sources that Lago got mad when Rojas refused to let him singlehandedly pick an artist — and a specific art gallery — for an Art in Public Places project and, rather, told him that everyone had to go through the competitive committee process.
This apparently irked him. After all, he didn’t need a competitive process to put his clock on Miracle Mile (btw, the date has been changed for the unveiling from 9/11 to 09/12).
Lago, as usual, did not return multiple calls and texts to both his phones. The only response was one telling me not to contact him on his personal phone but to use the city phone. Well, everyone knows that he uses his personal phone for city business and Ladra has old text messages from 2021 and 2022 that prove that.
Ben Kuehne, an attorney that represented Lago at the beginning of the investigation, declined to return calls or text for comment. Kuehne also represents Carollo.
Coral Gables Police Chief Ed Hudak could not be reached for comment and did not return calls and texts.
Read related: Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago attacks colleagues, manager in citywide email
Henry Bell, an attorney for Rojas, responded via email to a request for comment. “At this time, we have no comment. Should Mr. Lago, however, comment, that may change.”
One of Lago’s lackeys, his own contracting firm’s employee Nicolas Cabrera — at Hammer Lake Construction and Design, which Lago started with Norman Anthony “Tony” Newell in 2022 — is going around telling people that the manager lied and that nothing happened. But that’s clearly not the case.
Because if this were the good news that the mayor’s dwindling supporters wanted, then Lago would have surely blasted a message on social media by now declaring the whole thing “political theater” and beating his chest like he likes to do.
Instead, crickets. That probably means the investigative report doesn’t make him look like an angel.
Of course, Ladra asked for the close-out memo and affidavits taken or investigative documents that I can get as a public record. Of particular interest will be any statement made by Assistant City Manager Albert Parjus, was also reportedly in the room when the confrontation happened.
Stay tuned.
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Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago is cleared in City Hall ‘assault’ inquiry added by Ladra on
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