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Lawsuit: Miami park funds used to pay for medications, yacht parties

Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo arrives at court for his federal trial on April 18, 2023.
Matias J. Ocner
/
Miami Herald
Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo arrives at court for his federal trial on April 18, 2023.

Former employees of a City of Miami park agency say it has been in turmoil under the chairmanship of City Commissioner Joe Carollo.

The pair of employees have sued Carollo in federal court, claiming the commissioner used the city agency's multimillion dollar budget to benefit himself, his family and his allies.

Jose Suarez served as executive director of the Bayfront Park Management Trust, a city agency that manages Bayfront Park and Maurice A. Ferré Park. He previously worked as Carollo's chief of staff until he was appointed to the Trust last March. Jose Canto was the Trust's director of finance from April to December of last year.

In their lawsuit, Suarez and Canto claim Bayfront Park Trust funds were used to pay for things under Carollo's direction without proper documentation — including boxes of prescription drugs and fuel costs for a yacht that held Carollo's holiday parties.

"Carollo has attempted to use the Trust to pay or provide premium benefits to Carollo’s personal friends, including paying $20,000 for a yacht party for Carollo, his friends and family, and District 3 Office," their legal complaint states.

Speaking to WLRN news partner the Miami Herald, Carollo said the lawsuit is an attempt to "extort" him and that the claims are "lies."

The plaintiffs claim standing under Florida's whistleblower law. They argue that after they brought up issues with out-of-the-norm purchases and lack of accounting, they were insulted by the chairman and were isolated by the city, ultimately leading to their departures in December, which they claim were forced.

READ MORE: Miami sued by insurance company for paying Commissioner Joe Carollo's legal fees

The trust has an annual budget of between $10 and $20 million, made up of taxpayer dollars from the City of Miami as well as park fees. Carollo has served as chairman of the trust since 2017 when he was elected city commissioner.

In the lawsuit, Suarez claims he found several irregularities when he was appointed last March, including the trust's practice of collecting parking fees in cash.

"Apparently the money was stored in what was called the 'money room' and at times there would be employees that would take, I don't know, 20, 30, 40 thousand dollars in cash to the bank to deposit," Suarez said at a Wednesday press conference.

Canto said that the accounting for the trust was a "disaster" when he came in, with no formalized process for handling invoices and purchases being made without an adequate paper trail. The lawsuit claims Bayfront Park Trust moneys were used to pay for Carollo's Little Havana Fridays events.

Four men sit at a table facing a line of microphones.
Joshua Ceballos
/
WLRN
From left to right: Attorney Sam Kramer, Jose Canto, Jose Suarez, and Attorney Jeffrey Gutchess at a Jan. 22, 2025 press conference in the AXS Law Group offices.

"Suarez and Canto learned that in late January 2024, the Bayfront Trust wired approximately $45,000 to Joe Carollo’s Little Havana Fridays, despite the Bayfront Trust having no association with Carollo’s event nor deriving any benefit from Carollo’s event," the complaint states.

The complaint also recounts the purchase of a 2007 van for $115,000 in trust funds, purportedly meant to be used as a mobile veterinary clinic. Suarez claims the van came with Schedule IV controlled substances and prescription medications, which were kept in a storage room. Suarez said he contacted the Miami Police Department to report the presence of the drugs, to the alleged chagrin of Commissioner Carollo.

 "I was berated for being transparent. I was told that I needed to lawyer up," Suarez said.

Suarez is the latest of Carollo's former employees to either sue him or testify against him in court. The commissioner's former aid, Steven Miro, filed a wrongful termination suit against Carollo in 2019. Tanjha Quintana, a former Carollo staffer, testified in a federal lawsuit that Carollo told her to lie about other employees.

Suarez and Canto are being represented by attorneys Jeffrey Gutchess and Jay Rhodes. Rhodes previously served as Carollo's senior policy adviser.

" I am not going to sit by and watch him treat someone like Jose [Suarez] the way he has chosen to do so," Rhodes told WLRN.

This is also the latest in a long stream of lawsuits against Carollo, who has been a fixture in Miami politics since 1979 when he was first elected to the city commission. In 2023, the commissioner was found liable for violating the First Amendment rights of two local business owners and a federal jury ordered him to pay $63 million in damages.

Carollo has also faced numerous complaints about his leadership of the Bayfront Park Management Trust from residents who live near the park. Residents created a petition last year to remove Carollo as chairman of the trust. They complained that he executes contracts for multimillion dollar projects without a formal bidding process and pushed his own vision for Maurice A. Ferré Park in contradiction of the park’s existing master plan.

An item on the City Commission's Jan. 23 agenda seeks to remove Maurice A. Ferré Park from the trust's supervision.

Joshua Ceballos is WLRN's Local Government Accountability Reporter and a member of the investigations team. Reach Joshua Ceballos at jceballos@wlrnnews.org
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