Miami's Teapot Dome Scandal

Miami Mayor Joe Carollo was freed from jail on bond Thursday after agreeing to stay away from his wife, whom he allegedly hit on the head with a terra cotta tea caddy.

Carollo, 45, was arrested Wednesday on a misdemeanor battery charge and spent the night in jail. The incident rapidly became the talk of a town with a track record of embarrassing behavior by senior officials.

He was released after posting $1,500 bond.

Carollo — who became a regular figure on national TV during the Elian Gonzalez saga — and his wife Maria Ledon Carollo announced plans to divorce in November 2000 but still shared a home with their two young daughters.

One of their daughters phoned police Wednesday saying, "My dad's hurting my mom."

Police said Carollo threw a small tea container at his wife, hitting her on the forehead and raising a golfball-sized lump. She declined medical treatment.

The mayor had a scratch on his neck but his wife was not charged with injuring him because "Mayor Carollo was the aggressor," police spokesman Bill Schwartz said.

At a Thursday hearing that the mayor did not attend, a judge ordered Carollo to stay away from his wife, except during mediation related to the divorce.

Outside about a dozen supporters chanted "Carollo, Carollo," and "Libertad, libertad" — Spanish for freedom.

Carollo was held overnight at a detention center then transferred to the main jail to fill out paperwork. He left in his limousine without commenting publicly.

Maria Carollo released a statement saying her husband had not intended to harm her and that she was "completely opposed to any further involvement in the legal system in this very personal situation."

But under Florida law, it is police, not the alleged victims, who decide whether charges are filed in domestic disputes. Carollo was charged with a misdemeanor, which carries a maximum penalty of a year in jail, rather than a felony because there was no evidence of "great bodily injury" and the tea caddy was not considered a deadly weapon, police said.

The Cuban-born mayor earned national attention during the Gonzalez saga when he lobbied to keep the 6-year-old shipwreck survivor from being returned to Cuba with his father. He vowed that local police would not participate in federal efforts to remove Elian and that any violent protests resulting from a raid would be U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno's fault.

His actions during the Elian saga inspired some Miami residents to pelt City Hall with bananas, deriding the city as a "banana republic."

Carollo was first elected mayor in 1996 to fill the term left vacant when Mayor Steve Clark died of cancer. He seemed to have narrowly lost to former Mayor Xavier Suarez in the 1997 election, but was declared mayor in March 1998 after a judge threw out absentee ballots tainted by fraud.

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