The home of Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo could soon be heading to auction in an attempt to begin paying off the more than $63 million court judgment against him from last year.
The home of Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo could soon be heading to auction in an attempt to begin paying off the more than $63 million court judgment against him from last year.
A "Notice of Public Auction" posted in the recent edition of the Miami New Times announced that an auction would be held on March 19 in Downtown Miami for Carollo's house.
Carollo was found liable in June 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 November, a federal court ordered the city of Miami to garnish the commissioner's wages and last month, a judge ordered his property seized.
Earlier this month, U.S. Marshals began the process to seize Carollo's assets, and a representative of the U.S. Marshals was seen posting multiple notices on the front of Carollo's home, including a "Notice of U.S. Marshal Levy."
Last week, a federal judge denied Carollo's attempt to stop the collection of the judgment.
Carollo has denied any wrongdoing, and has vowed to appeal the judgment and fight the asset seizure.
The commissioner's attorney has also said that the house is the marital property of Carollo and his wife, and can't be seized.
Jeff Gutchess, the Miami lawyer who represented Fuller and Pinilla in their suit against Carollo, disagrees.
“He abandoned his homestead in 2016 and that is one of the classic reasons why he is not entitled to homestead,” Gutchess said.
“We live in America, you just can’t take someone’s homestead away because you got some cheap carpetbagger, like Mr. Gutchess, that feels he could do whatever he pleases,” Carollo said Thursday inside his Little Havana field office.
