FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – As the trial stretched beyond the one-month mark, a juror sitting for the federal civil case against Joe Carollo had to call it quits Thursday, as one of the businessmen suing the Miami city commissioner spent another full day on the stand.
Carollo is being sued by entrepreneurs Bill Fuller and Martin Pinilla for allegedly abusing his power to harass them and hurt their businesses because they supported his political opponent in 2017.
Carollo’s defense team cross-examined Fuller Thursday in Fort Lauderdale federal court, trying to show jurors that his properties had code issues long before the commissioner was elected.
During testimony on Wednesday, Fuller talked about a meeting that took place on Valentine’s Day 2019.
He told jurors that he watched a live stream of Carollo making a presentation that he and many others believed directly targeted Fuller’s properties. Angered by this, he rushed to Miami City Hall to confront the commissioner, and the exchange that followed was recorded in the commission meeting archives.
On Thursday, Carollo’s attorneys got a chance to cross-examine Fuller, and things quickly became tense.
At one point, the judge had to remind Fuller to answer the questions he was being asked and warned Carollo’s attorney, Ben Kuehne, not to ask argumentative questions.
Kuehne spent most of the day presenting evidence to jurors that Fuller’s properties had issues with code violations long before Carollo was elected to District 3. While Fuller acknowledged some of the issues, he maintained that things became exponentially worse once Carollo took office, at one point calling the commissioner’s actions “demented.”
Another argument Fuller’s attorneys have made throughout this trial is that, regardless of whether or not there were violations, Carollo fixated on Fuller’s properties to a point of obsession and harassment.
Testimony was scheduled to continue Friday and Carollo’s defense was expected to begin calling its witnesses after Fuller finishes testifying.
The suit asks for millions of dollars from Carollo, plus punitive damages.