Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago and Actualidad Media Group have reached a settlement in a defamation lawsuit that Lago filed over on-air remarks falsely claiming he was under investigation by the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust.
The agreement was reached last week, according to an Aug. 8 filing from former Miami-Dade Chief Circuit Judge Joseph Farina, who stepped in to mediate the dispute in April at the agreement of both parties.
A settlement sum wasn’t specified. Lago’s lawsuit sought more than $100,000 in damages. Sources familiar with the case told Florida Politics Actualidad agreed to pay Lago “six figures.”
In a joint statement, Lago and Actualidad laid out a brief, agreed-upon timeline for the disputed claim before confirming it has been resolved.
“The parties have amicably resolved their dispute, and Mayor Lago has agreed to dismiss his lawsuit,” the statement said.
The Miami Herald first reported on the settlement Thursday.
Lago sued the Spanish-language broadcaster in December 2023, alleging that host Robert Rodriguez Tejera and Coral Gables Commissioner Ariel Fernandez damaged his personal and professional reputation during a Feb. 27, 2023, segment on Actualidad 1040 AM.
They claimed Lago faced an ethics investigation related to alleged family business ties to the Gables Trailer Park, a property in the nearby Little Gables neighborhood Coral Gables was targeting for annexation.
At the time, the Ethics Commission had opened a “matter under initial review,” not a formal investigation, after receiving an anonymous complaint. On Aug. 23, 2023, the Ethics Commission closed the matter, finding the complaint “not legally sufficient to commence an investigation.”
The complaint claimed Lago lied in a sworn affidavit stating neither he nor any immediate family members had business interest in Little Gables, but that his brother, Carlos Lago, had an “ongoing and active relationship with the largest landholder in the Little Gables area.”
The Ethics Commission determined that was not an accurate characterization.
In 2014, Carlos Lago registered as a lobbyist with the city of Miami — not Coral Gables — for Titan Development, a real estate company that owns the Gables Trailer Park in Little Gables. Through interviews with Titan President Jesus Suarez and the Lago brothers, Ethics Commission investigator Karl Ross determined that while Carlos Lago’s lobbyist registration for Titan remained active through March 6 — six days after the Actualidad segment aired — it had been more than a decade since he had done any work for the company and he had no business interests in Little Gables.
On Oct. 10, 2023, the Ethics Commission review concluded Lago “did not knowingly make a false statement” and that no further scrutiny into the matter was warranted.
“This matter is hereby closed,” Ross wrote.
Mayor Lago signed the affidavit in question Aug. 24, 2022, amid protracted contract negotiations with a union representing Coral Gables firefighters. It was meant to “create public trust,” he told Ross, by affirming that he and his family had nothing to gain financially from annexing Little Gables — a move the firefighters union opposed, arguing it would further strain the city’s already thinly staffed Fire Department.
Lago said he only signed the affidavit after consulting with then-City Attorney Miriam Ramos, who drafted the document and advised him to ask family members if they owned property or had any business interests in Little Gables. The Mayor told the Ethics Commission he did so and “nobody in his family,” including Carlos Lago, “indicated they had any property or business interest in Little Gables.”
Chief Assistant State Attorney Jose Arrojo, then the Executive Director of the Commission on Ethics and Public Trust, told the Herald in January 2024 that the distinction between a review and an investigation is important, since “the lesser designation is designed to prevent the unfair smear effect that the label ‘under investigation’ could have on a public official.
He said Lago’s assertion that he was “never under investigation … is accurate.”
Lago’s lawsuit said its aim was to “stop reckless journalists from making orchestrated and intentionally false statements to push their own narratives and agendas by recklessly pushing known falsehoods about the plaintiff.”
He told Florida Politics last January that it was his “sincere belief that this lawsuit will serve as a catalyst for positive change within Actualidad Media Group LLC and the local media industry at large.”
“By holding Actualidad … accountable for their actions,” he said, “I hope to contribute to the broader conversation about media accountability in our community.”
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