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Developer Patrick Carroll has been sued for defamation in connection to an alleged spitting incident at a high-end restaurant in Miami, according to a report in The Real Deal.
Carroll was sued by restaurant manager Miguel Angel Weill, who accused Carroll of spitting on him during a videotaped dispute in April.
Weill has said Carroll spit on him after he prevented the developer from aggressively hitting on another customer at the Miami restaurant Hiyakawa — an incident that was captured on surveillance cameras.
In response to the footage being picked up by the news media, Carroll — via the Carroll Organization’s spokesperson Lewis Goldberg — accused Weill of extortion — forming the basis of Weill’s defamation lawsuit against Carroll.
Goldberg’s statement that Weill allegedly told Carroll “I want you to hit me so I can get paid” was defamatory, according to the lawsuit.
Weill also claims that he suffered emotional distress due to legal threats made by Carroll demanding him to retract his statements.
“Mr. Carroll could have come to the restaurant and given Miguel a sincere apology for his outrageous conduct,” Weill’s attorney Anthony Narula told The Real Deal. “Instead he sent a demand letter to Miguel with a threat of a lawsuit.”
Carroll has not been served with the lawsuit and will not comment on it, his attorney Duncan Levin said in a statement.
“He will fight any accusations in court, not the press,” Levin said.
The suit marks the second time Carroll has been sued for defamation in the past two years.
In 2021, Tampa attorney Michael Lundy, who represented Carroll’s ex-wife in divorce proceedings, sued the real estate mogul in Hillsborough County for allegedly making false statements about the attorney on social media.
It’s also not the first time Carroll has found himself banned from buzzy Miami eateries. According to the lawsuit, Carroll was also banned from all restaurants owned by the New York-based hospitality company Major Foods Group, after allegedly calling a service manager at Miami Carbone a “street N-word” after being asked to leave the Italian restaurant for allegedly harassing a waiter and being overly intoxicated in December 2022.
The complaint also claims Carroll used an “F-word” homophobic slur against an employee at Kim’s Cote Miami in the Miami Design District.
Carroll has denied the additional allegations. The founder of the Atlanta-based Carroll Organization is currently looking to sell his $7.4 billion real estate portfolio, according to The Real Deal.
