Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo should get to claim his Coconut Grove home as exempt from a $63.5 million court judgment against him, a federal magistrate judge said over the weekend.
In a court filing released Saturday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Lauren Louis sided with Carollo in his fight to have the property be considered his homestead, and thus exempt from being seized and auctioned off to satisfy the massive judgment.
Carollo was found liable in June of 2023 in a federal civil lawsuit brought by two businessmen who accused him of trying to destroy their businesses as political retaliation.
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The jury found Carollo violated the plaintiffs' First Amendment rights and awarded them more than $63 million.
Bill Fuller, the owner of the Ball and Chain restaurant and club in Little Havana, and fellow businessman Martin Pinilla claimed Carollo weaponized the city’s police and code enforcement departments to shut down several of their businesses in Little Havana because they supported his political opponent.
In her filing, Louis said the burden was on Fuller and Pinilla to show that the property on Morris Lane isn't exempt.
Carollo testified that he'd changed his driver's license to the property in April 2023 and the address is on his voter ID card that was issued in April 2023, a few mons before the judgment.
Carollo said he'd been living in an apartment before the district map was changed in 2022 to include the Coconut Grove home in his district, but said his intention was always to permanently live at the home.
Louis found Fuller and Pinilla didn't prove otherwise.
"The objective evidence is sufficient to show Defendant’s intent to permanently reside at the Morris Lane Property as his homestead," Louis wrote in the filing. "Thus, the Court concludes that Plaintiffs did not meet their burden to prove that Defendant left the Morris Lane Property with no intention of returning or that Defendant established a new permanent residence at another place."
Louis' recommendation now heads to the judge overseeing the case, though attorneys for Fuller and Pinilla have two weeks to object.
In a statement over the weekend, Carollo said he was "thrilled" with Louis' recommendation.
"Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo and his family are thrilled that the
federal court validated his Constitutional Homestead as a protection
against the efforts of local businessmen to take away his only home," the statement read, in part. "The federal court flatly rejected the Plaintiffs’ attempt to rewrite new and unfounded exceptions to Florida’s Constitutional Homestead
Protection, the very bedrock of Florida’s guarantee of home ownership."
Carollo has denied any wrongdoing, and has appealed the $63.5 million judgment.
In November of 2023, a federal court ordered the city of Miami to garnish the commissioner's wages, but Carollo is fighting that order.
