MIAMI — The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected an appeal by former Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo, effectively ending his legal battle with the business owners of Ball & Chain in Little Havana.
According to a court filing from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit obtained by Local 10 News, the high court denied Carollo’s petition for a writ of certiorari in Carollo v. William O. Fuller, et al., leaving in place lower court rulings in favor of William Fuller and Martin Pinilla.
In a statement to Local 10 News, attorney Jeff Gutchess, who represents Fuller and Pinilla, said the decision brings the yearslong case to a close.
“Yesterday, the United States Supreme Court denied certiorari in Fuller v. Carollo, leaving in place the lower court’s ruling in favor of William Fuller and Martin Pinilla. With that decision, this case has finally reached its end,” Gutchess wrote.
“For years, my clients — small business owners — endured retaliation, financial harm, and significant stress on their families for exercising their First Amendment rights. The courts made clear that such conduct is unconstitutional,” the statement continued.
The case stems from a federal civil trial in which a jury found that Carollo violated Fuller and Pinilla’s First Amendment rights by using city resources to retaliate against them after they supported his political opponent in 2017.
Jurors awarded the businessmen roughly $63.5 million in compensatory and punitive damages. In July 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed a district court decision denying Carollo’s motion for a mistrial and dismissed the remainder of his appeal for lack of appellate jurisdiction.
Despite losing at trial and on appeal, Carollo previously told Local 10 he believed he still had a path forward.
“It is never pleasant when you get a negative response,” Carollo said in a prior interview.
“Certainly there is the possibility of the Supreme Court taking this case up,” he added at the time.
He petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear his case — a request the court denied this week.
“It is unfortunate that the City of Miami chose to spend millions of taxpayer dollars defending this abuse rather than accepting responsibility,” Gutchess wrote. “Today’s outcome reaffirms that constitutional protections apply to everyone, and that government retaliation has consequences.”
Local 10 previously reported that Miami taxpayers have spent more than $5 million on Carollo’s legal bills, according to city documents.
Earlier reporting showed that during the more than 50-day trial alone, three jurors dropped out and Carollo racked up nearly $2 million in legal bills at the taxpayer’s expense.
The mounting costs have drawn criticism from Miami District 1 Commissioner Miguel Gabela.
“The residue left right now from that is not a good one,” Gabela said.
“My stance is this, since I got here You know, the city attorneys would try to convince me that we’re going to win, we’re gonna win, we’re gonna win and we lose, we lose, we lose,” he said.
Gabela previously said there was previously discussion about trying to recover taxpayer money spent on Carollo’s defense.
“To recoup the moneies that we should have never have spent defending him in his personal lawsuit,” Gabela said in a July interview.
Asked whether he plans to move forward with that idea now that the Supreme Court has denied review, Gabela said it would depend on fellow commissioners.
“It depends on the appetite of the commissioner if my colleagues like that idea or not. There is mixed emotions because on the one side, what are you going to collect what you are basically going to collect is a piece of paper you are not going to collect any real money i don’t know if the city would be spending more time on that situation,” Gabela said. “If you want to do it out of principle that is one thing, but realistically, what are you going to collect? So the question for us as a body, as Commissioners, is whether it is worth it to do that.”
The $63.5 million judgment is expected to be pursued against both Carollo and the city’s insurers. However, the city is now in a separate legal dispute with QBE Specialty Insurance Company, which has sued the city in federal court seeking reimbursement for money spent on Carollo’s defense.
Plaintiffs have also asked a federal judge to lift a stay in related proceedings, setting the stage for additional litigation tied to the same case.
In addition, Fuller and Pinilla are pursuing a separate federal lawsuit focused on alleged economic damages — distinct from the emotional distress damages awarded in the First Amendment case. In previously aired testimony, a tenant said, “he financially crushed us we had to close the business down.”
That lawsuit could expose the city to further financial liability and years of continued litigation.
“It is unfortunate that the City of Miami chose to spend millions of taxpayer dollars defending this abuse rather than accepting responsibility,” Gutchess wrote. “Today’s outcome reaffirms that constitutional protections apply to everyone, and that government retaliation has consequences.”
Court filings show the Eleventh Circuit concluded the district court did not abuse its discretion when denying Carollo’s motion for a mistrial, noting the investigation was “as thorough as the situation require(d).” The court also found that alleged juror tampering was “non-prejudicial and harmless,” stating the contact in question “had no connection to the subject matter of the trial.”
Gutchess added in a previous statement that the plaintiffs intend to move forward with collecting the judgment from both the commissioner and the city’s insurers, who covered Carollo’s legal fees for years.
Court filings show the Eleventh Circuit concluded the district court did not abuse its discretion when denying Carollo’s motion for a mistrial, noting the investigation was “as thorough as the situation require(d).” The court also found that alleged juror tampering was “non-prejudicial and harmless,” stating the contact in question “had no connection to the subject matter of the trial.”
Local 10 received a statement from Marc Sarnoff, former city of Miami commissioner and one of Carollo’s attorneys.
“The Commissioner is disappointed that a person with a financial interest in the outcome of the suit (a funder) can make purposeful contact with a juror, who would be the foreperson, by threatening her, in full violation of the court’s order to not make any juror contact and this was allowed to go unabated by the courts,” the statement read. “Our jury system is teetering when money funders are allowed to make purposeful and threatening contact without remedy.”
While Sarnoff’s remarks focus on public concerns about juror contact, the lower and appellate courts had already determined that the alleged incidents did not affect the outcome of the trial or appellate review.
Fuller and Pinilla are also pursuing a separate federal lawsuit seeking an additional $2.4 million in damages.
Local 10 viewers can view Carollo’s petition by clicking here.
Court filings
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