MIAMI – Miami City Commissioner Joe Carollo is being sued again, this time by two former employees of a city agency he ran. They claim he retaliated against them for exposing financial mismanagement, misuse of public funds and corruption.
Plaintiffs Jose Suarez and Jose Canto, former executives with the Bayfront Park Management Trust, filed the whistleblower suit Tuesday in Miami federal court. Suarez was the agency’s executive director, while Canto was its finance director.
They are suing Carollo, who chairs the trust, and Javier Baños, a trustee the lawsuit states is married to Carollo’s cousin — and is the commissioner’s longtime accountant, including in his political ventures and for a business owned by Carollo’s wife, Marjorie.
They are also suing the trust itself. Canto said at a news conference Wednesday that the trust rakes in up to $12 million per year, with surpluses of about $4 million yearly.
Read the lawsuit:
The two are being represented by attorney Jeff Gutchess, who notably represented two Little Havana businessmen who successfully sued Carollo in 2023 after accusing him of political retaliation.
“I think it is important for Miami, the city of the future, that we get good governance in place,” Gutchess said. “I think (Carollo) should come clean.”
Alleged payments to allies, accounting issues
Suarez and Canto allege that public trust money was spent on Carollo’s political office and allies, including $60,000 to the commissioner’s Little Havana Fridays event and $150,000 to a broadcaster with ties to Carollo.
The $60,000 Little Havana Friday payment was “allegedly intended to enable Carollo to pay artists to perform at his Little Havana Fridays event, payment which reportedly resulted in booking commissions being paid to entities associated with or controlled by Joe and, or, Marjorie Carollo,” the lawsuit states.
It also states that the trust paid Spanish-language broadcaster AmericaTeve $150,000 to broadcast its New Years Eve party, rather than having another broadcaster televise the event for free, or even paying the trust for broadcast rights, “standard practice in the industry.”
“Joe and Marjorie Carollo are close personal friends with the owners of AmericaTeve, which actively supports Carollo’s political career,” the suit states.
Suarez and Canto also allege that the trust was paying Carollo’s social media provider, Macro Films LLC, $6,000 per month. The company, the plaintiffs claim, is “closely associated with Marjorie Carollo.”
“Suarez determined that this $6,000 per month was wildly overpaying Macro Films for the social media work (and) cut back this amount to $2,300 per month,” the suit states.
It continues, “Macro Films also runs the social media accounts for Carollo’s District 3 Office, which office is also overpaying Macro Films. Upon information and belief, Marjorie Carollo is getting kickbacks from the payments made to Macro Films by both the Trust and the D3 Office.”
The suit claims that when Canto expressed concerns over and tried to address the payments, Baños confronted Suarez, “ominously” warning him that he “would rather Canto not express any issues he has with the accounting at the open board meeting” and “he ‘was honestly very displeased with’ the transparency that both Suarez and Canto were seeking to impose.”
The suit also alleges that Carollo tried to get the trust to pay for a $20,000 private yacht party for a “personal party for Carollo, his friends, his family and his District 3 Office” during the holidays.
“When Suarez and Canto raised their concerns and refused to pay the invoice, Carollo retaliated at the next Board meeting, publicly berating and defaming both of them,” the suit states. Seafair, the yacht company, then rescinded the invoice.
The suit also claims that a food truck operator connected to Carollo was allowed to perform faulty and unsafe electrical work at Bayfront Park, and despite Suarez’s objections and orders to halt the activity, the concerns were never fully addressed.
The complaint also mentions a check the trust issued for more than $500,000 with “a mere reference to ‘dogs and cats,’” a likely reference to the Dogs and Cats Walkway and Sculpture Gardens at Maurice A. Ferré Park, reportedly built at the behest of Joe and Marjorie Carollo.
It also alleges that parking revenue was collected in cash and stored in a “money room” with minimal oversight, and the lack of accountability allowed employees to skim funds.
The suit claims that after Suarez implemented credit card payments for parking, revenue increased significantly as “pinching” or “skimming” was no longer possible.
‘Suspicious’ mobile veterinary van purchase
One of the more explosive allegations in the lawsuit involves a 2007 Ford E450 van outfitted to serve as a mobile veterinary clinic.
The suit alleges that the van sold for $70,000 when it was new and was worth about $30,000 at the time of the filing. The trust, it states, bought the van in 2023 from a entity called “Rex Mobile Vet LLC,” created four months after the trust ”announced its ‘emergency’ plan to procure the vehicle.”
“Upon information and belief, Rex Mobile never operated the van as a mobile veterinarian clinic but rather purchased it as part of a plan to reconvey it to the Trust, which it did a mere five months later,” the lawsuit states.
The company has since become inactive, according to the suit.
The suit claims that Suarez, performing a storage assessment on the van, discovered that the trust was “storing boxes full of medicines” inside, which included controlled substances, including sedatives, antineurals and anesthetics.
Suarez, the trust attorney and the city attorney all alerted the Miami Police Department, the lawsuit claims. MPD took possession of the drugs and launched an internal investigation, which Suarez assisted in.
“When Suarez informed Carollo that Suarez was going to assist the IA investigation, Carollo berated Suarez, stating ‘I hoped you learned your lesson in trying to be transparent’ and ominously telling Suarez that he needed ‘to lawyer up,’” the lawsuit states.
The suit alleges that the MPD investigation “was closed, or covered up, with suspicious irregularities, including (a) the prescription drugs being destroyed shortly after the investigation began and (b) the drugs Bayfront Park purchased and possessed being rebranded as ‘lost property.’”
The plaintiffs allege that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement is believed to be “investigating the timing of the City’s destruction of the evidence.”
Constructive discharge claim
The lawsuit alleges that Carollo pushed Suarez and Canto out of their jobs “(a)fter diligently working to bring transparency and ethics.”
The pair “were attacked, defamed and constructively discharged,” they claim.
The suit alleges that after the MPD investigation began, Carollo “started isolating Suarez and working directly to undermine Suarez’s ability to act as Executive Director either as a pretext to firing him or to coerce him into departing” and began by “transferring, replacing, or attacking employees that worked with Suarez” and directing them not to cooperate with him.
On Dec. 9, the lawsuit claims that Carollo “viciously defamed Canto.”
“Despite Canto’s efforts to increase transparency by raising issues in the Trust’s accounting, including its misreporting revenues, Carollo implied Canto was stealing money from the Trust and not fulfilling his work hours,” the suit states. “Of course, Canto was not only meeting his work hours and working tirelessly throughout the workweek, but he was also working most weekends.”
The claims caused Canto “to suffer medical ailments relating to the stress and anxiety, including pain that prevented (him) from even walking,” the plaintiffs allege.
Canto left the trust because of the attacks, and Carollo “successfully ousted Suarez” soon after, the lawsuit states.
On Dec. 20, three days after Suarez’s ouster, Carollo “accus(ed) Suarez as engaging in nefarious activities during his tenure,” the suit claims. It states the allegations were “patently false.”
The plaintiffs are asking for a jury trial and are seeking “back pay, front pay, loss of fringe benefits, pre-judgment interest, and compensatory damages for lost wages and benefits.”
Carollo, Baños respond
Carollo, in a news conference at his office on Wednesday, denied the allegations against him.
“This is Miami, nothing surprises me anymore,” he told Local 10 News reporter Christina Vazquez, saying that the plaintiffs are “lying through their teeth.”
He continued, “This is hogwash, this will be thrown out in federal court because there is no ‘whistleblower’, these are two characters that have been promised by the attorney, who has sued the city and me all over the place and is now in dire need of getting money in their pockets, have been made promises.”
“I hate to inform Mr. Suarez and Mr. Canto, you ain’t getting any money,” Carollo said.
Carollo said Suarez resigned and was not terminated, so he doesn’t understand why he thinks he is entitled to back pay when he was the one who left the job.
He said he also doesn’t understand how there could be a claim he was terminated for speaking out if he was never actually terminated.
Carollo defended the vet mobile, saying everything was fully transparent and what he and other officials were hoping to do was to help pet owners unable to afford vaccines for their pets.
Carollo read from a document which he said was dated in February of 2024, stating that the MPD investigation “discovered no evidence of a crime or an attempt to commit a crime was found” and so the case was closed.
He said the vials were discarded and not smashed because they were empty and did not include liquid or narcotics.
He says Suarez was tasked to find veterinarians to assist with giving out vaccines, but never did it, claiming he was too busy with a fountain project at Bayfront Park.
Carollo also tied Suarez to District 2 Commissioner Damian Pardo, who represents the downtown Miami waterfront, insinuating that Suarez, Carollo’s former chief of staff, had been working with Pardo.
He said on Oct. 8, an email was sent to the chief of police from someone who works in Pardo’s office calling for a formal investigation of the vet items.
“This I believed crossed the line because when you say a commissioner is calling for a formal investigation, that is like ordering the chief to do it. This is an elected official abusing his power trying to get a police chief to weaponize fully internal affairs to go against a city entity for the sole purpose of hurting Joe Carollo,” Carollo said, referring to himself in the third person. “If I would have done this to this character he would have been whining from here to Moscow.”
Pardo punched back in a statement to Local 10 News on Tuesday.
"New year, new lawsuit for Commissioner Joe Carollo who incessantly blames everyone other than himself for his circumstances. He has infuriated downtown residents (lawsuit -trial date 6/25), business people in his district (lawsuit resulting in a $63.5 million judgement against him), former police chief (lawsuit pending), and now his former Chief of Staff and a former aide. I am not a party to any of these lawsuits, and his predicaments predate my assuming elected office.
Commissioner Carollo is consumed by the weight of the receipts of his own actions.
I certainly have nothing personal against Commissioner Carollo and will sit down and work with him or his office for the benefit of city residents. However, I have been clear I do not believe he is fit to hold publc office in the City of Miami having been found guilty by a judge and jury of violating the business owners’ first amendment rights and weaponizing city government against Little Havana businesses and consequently having a personal, outstanding judgment of $63.5 million dollars and having cost City of Miami taxpayers approximately $20 million dollars in legal fees. That’s 800,000 meals for lower resourced residents, that’s 134,000 affordable housing units.
Commissioner Carollo is no victim of a conspiracy or a political foe. He is just reaping what he has sowed.”
Damian Pardo, District 2 Commissioner
Meanwhile, Baños declined Local 10 News’ request for an interview Wednesday, but said in an email that he “categorically” denies the allegations.
“As one of nine board members, my involvement is limited to monthly meetings where all decisions are made collectively and transparently,” Baños said. “Furthermore, the trust undergoes annual independent audits.”
Baños said that in public meetings, Suarez “never once expressed any of the concerns now outlined in the complaint.”
“During my tenure we have quadrupled the reserves of the trust, and made improvements for the beautification and the public enjoyment of the park,” he concluded. “Every resident is entitled to their opinion obviously, but any allegation of wrongdoing on my part is simply defamatory.”
What’s next
Legal analyst David Weinstein, who’s not connected with the case, explained why Gutchess and the rest of the legal team were so detailed in their filing.
“(H)e wants to get this out in front of the public and that is the way to do it, you do it in your pleading, and we have seen this happen before and we have seen some federal judges clamp down on them and say, ‘You don’t need to try your case in the public, make it more concise, make it more stated to the facts,’” he said. “Second is they need to allege what they think are sufficient allegations in order to survive motions of summary judgment.”
Federal court records show the case has been assigned to Senior U.S. District Judge Joan A. Lenard.
Those records don’t list any scheduled hearings as of Wednesday.