MIAMI – U.S. Marshals have scheduled a public auction to sell off Joe Carollo’s Coconut Grove home in order to satisfy a portion of a $63.5 million civil verdict against the Miami city commissioner.
Two Little Havana businessmen who won a lawsuit against the commissioner will be the beneficiaries of whatever windfall the property brings in — assuming Carollo doesn’t succeed in putting a stop to it. He’s calling the whole thing “malarkey” and expressed confidence Thursday he would prevail and keep his home.
The Marshals posted a legal notice in the Miami New Times’ print edition Thursday announcing a noon auction at the Wilkie D. Ferguson U.S. Courthouse in downtown Miami, scheduled for March 19. The notice will run another three times before then.
It comes after Carollo lost a lawsuit to Bill Fuller and Martin Pinilla. The Ball & Chain owners convinced a federal jury that the commissioner violated their constitutional rights by using his office to target and retaliate against them for supporting a political opponent.
On Wednesday, Carollo’s attorneys filed an emergency motion in federal court seeking to stop the sale of 3230 Morris Lane, claiming the commissioner and his wife are under “imminent threat of immediate, irreparable harm” from the scheduled sale.
Carollo’s motion:
Carollo has maintained his property is safe from seizure under a homestead exemption.
Speaking to Local 10 News reporter Christina Vazquez Thursday, he said, “The law says that I have homestead otherwise, maybe even you Christina, might be sued tomorrow and will try to do the same thing to you and your home if someone puts a judgement against you.”
But experts say the case isn’t clear-cut. Public records show no exemption on the property, and attorney Jeff Gutchess, who represents Fuller and Pinilla, argues that Carollo lost the exemption in a very public way.
“(It’s) not only abandonment but it is famous abandonment of a home,” Gutchess said.
Gutchess is referring to when Carollo, under oath, successfully convinced a judge he wasn’t living in the Coconut Grove home in order to fend off a District 3 residency qualification challenge.
”He and his wife resided in Little Havana, he swore that under oath on many occasions,” Gutchess said. “(There’s) a lot of evidence of him sneaking around in the dark in that neighborhood for many years.”
Gutchess and Carollo speak:
The Coconut Grove home was later added to District 3 as part of a controversial redistricting process that’s wrapped up in a separate federal case. A judge’s imminent ruling, Gutchess believes, could also impact whether Carollo keeps his home.
“The judge that hears this case, one of the things he is going to consider, in addition to the abandonment, is the egregiousness of the conduct by Carollo,” he said. “We are going to argue that, what can be more egregious than a public official re-drawing voting maps for his own personal asset protection and then only moving back into the home when the jury verdict was imminent and only then for being able to argue it is homestead?”
He added that “the sale could go forward without a judge ever ruling.”
Carollo, who has consistently lampooned the verdict, the plaintiffs and the legal process, and who has maintained he’s done nothing wrong, bluntly took a shot at Gutchess Thursday.
“It’s not going to happen,” the commissioner said. “I have homestead and he knows that what he is saying is a lot of malarkey. I am going strictly on the Florida Constitution. It is as clear as it can be.”
It will be up to the case judge to weigh the competing arguments and determine whether the auction will go forward. Carollo has always maintained that he will appeal the jury’s verdict.
There’s apparently already interest in purchasing the house. While Local 10 News was outside the home for a live report Thursday, someone came up to the door, saying he was looking for the notice and asking when the auction was scheduled.