How Fort Lauderdale Mayor’s Tumultuous Relationship Ended in Tragedy

They first crossed paths at a fundraiser at a center for the LGBTQ community in 2024.

Soon, Dean Trantalis, the mayor of Fort Lauderdale, and Daniel Curran, a trained opera singer who had lately struggled to find work, were thrust into a whirlwind romance, traveling the globe together. The romance peaked with a proposal at the Eiffel Tower in July 2025.

But just a few months later, Curran was arrested and accused of attacking the 72-year-old politician at his Fort Lauderdale home. The domestic violence incident garnered headlines and put a spotlight on the mayor’s tumultuous relationship.

Although the man everyone knew as Danny always appeared to be smiling and happy, he was struggling mentally, according to those close to him. Just as his domestic violence case seemed to be getting resolved, with hopes he would get treatment, Curran jumped from the 12th floor of the Coral Ridge Towers complex on April 9. It was his 35th birthday.

Interviews and records obtained by New Times reveal how their lives intersected in a way that would have a shocking and tragic ending — and offer a fuller picture of Curran.

“Danny was a fun, happy-go-lucky, adventurous individual who loved life, who was patient, endeared himself to so many,” Trantalis tells New Times in his first interview since Curran’s death. “He loved to line dance and two-step. He had many friends, but that’s when Danny was of a right mind.”

A Talented Vocalist With Personal Struggles

Curran was born in Mineola, New York, according to public records. Trantalis describes him as having a difficult childhood; he says Curran told him his father died by suicide when Curran was 8 years old. The mayor and David Geerders, an ex-boyfriend who knew Curran for 14 years, say Curran did not seem to be close with his mother or two siblings.

Trantalis says it may have been hard for the family to “deal with Danny’s emotional outbursts” and “fully understand what Danny was going through.”

Attempts to reach them were unsuccessful.

Curran appears to have attended Kellenberg Memorial High School, a private, Catholic institution on Long Island, according to a LinkedIn profile that seems to match his background. He then attended Purchase College in the State University of New York system. School officials confirmed he graduated in 2013 with a bachelor’s degree in music, majoring in vocal performance.

He loved to perform, and particularly dance and sing, Geerders recounts. It was at one of his plays that the couple first met, days after Curran’s 21st birthday.

“I was living in Philadelphia, but we had a lot of mutual friends on Facebook and I got to kind of chatting with him through there, and then he invited me up for a show,” Geerders adds.

They eventually started dating while Curran was living in New York and Geerders in Philadelphia. Geerders says Curran moved to Philadelphia to be with him, only for the two to later go their separate ways. Curran moved to Los Angeles, and Geerders moved to Wilton Manors. Public records show that Curran had minor debt problems in Los Angeles in 2019.

However, the couple would reconnect when Curran moved to Wilton Manors in 2021. They briefly dated for three months until February 2022.

“We were just going in two separate directions,” Geerders tells New Times. “But we still talked to each other.”

Three months into the relationship, Geerders learned Curran had been working as an escort, which ultimately led to their breakup. As far as Geerders knew at the time, Curran would do shows, serving, or busboy jobs. He says it may not have been a dealbreaker if he had been told at the start of the relationship.

“I didn’t know that when he moved here, that’s what he did,” Geerders continues. “He didn’t tell me about it, and when he did, he said, ‘Oh, you know this.'”

A local gay publication last week uncovered “DonnyDiggs” profiles on gay escort and massage sites like Rent.men and rentmasseur.com, with photos that appear to be of Curran and descriptions that match his characteristics. By late Thursday, some of the profiles were no longer live.

Trantalis says he also learned later in their relationship that Curran worked as an escort. He says he told him to stop, and Curran said he would, but by then they were no longer together. He believes that Curran was doing it “more out of desperation than out of desire.”

“Danny had severe emotional problems, so he couldn’t keep a job down, so what else could he do to survive? And he figured, ‘Well, let me do this,'” Trantalis adds. “He had an OnlyFans page, and he was making money that way because it was within his control.”

Trantalis notes that Curran was also a devout Catholic who went to church every single morning.

“That was his second home,” the mayor adds. “He loved going to church, and everybody loved him there, and no one judged him there.”

After meeting “sometime in 2024” at a fundraiser, Curran in 2025 moved in with Trantalis, who was 37 years his senior. The mayor calls Curran a “person of substance” with a beautiful voice and heart.

“When we were in the car, listening to the classical music station, an aria would come on, and he would sing right along with it,” Trantalis remembers. “Knowing the words. It was amazing, he was amazing.”

However, Trantalis says there were points where a “dark personality” would take over, and he would transform into a different person.

“He would be argumentative, violent. Never thought him to be self-destructive, but mental illness, mental disease, consumed him. It was very sad,” Trantalis says. “Sometimes you would be watching him, and he would be smiling and happy, and then his face would change; it would contort. You can see he was fighting back, trying to fight back the feelings that were overcoming him.”

Still, Trantalis remembers what he describes as wonderful times spent traveling together in Europe. Photos from Curran’s Facebook show the happy couple smiling at events, including Florida Panthers games, driving around in the car, and traveling.

“I love you, Dean, with all that I am,” Curran posted on July 7, 2025, along with a slideshow of photos and “All My Love” by Coldplay.

Later on July 22, Curran posted photos of the couple in Greece, including a photo showing himself proposing to the mayor. A day later, he posted a photo of Trantalis with the caption, “#fiance.” He says Curran proposed to him with a ring from Tiffany’s at a restaurant in the Eiffel Tower. After that, they traveled around Paris, visiting the Palace of Versailles, and Notre Dame Cathedral, before finishing the trip in Crete, where they danced on the docks, Trantalis recounts.

Later, he wondered whether he was really ready for the proposal.

“And I even said, ‘Look, let’s work on this,'” Trantalis says.

It was on the flight home where Curran had another “fallout,” as Trantalis describes. He says he was not the same person and was running around the plane to the point that it upset the flight attendant. However, he says that he knew Curran would eventually calm down, which he did once they got home to South Florida.

The mayor notes that he reached out to one of Curran’s therapists, but he said he was ignored. He says it was almost as if Curran had multiple personalities.

“It’s just one of these very difficult moments in life that I just feel so helpless trying to figure out how I could have helped him, but nothing I could do was working, so I tried to show him love,” Trantalis tells New Times. “I really do love him deeply. He was a fellow that brought emotions out of me that I thought had long since died.”

Public Fallout

By September, their relationship appeared to have taken a dark turn.

Trantalis was granted a temporary protection order against Curran after he claimed that he threw objects at him, pulled a knife on him, demanded that he leave the house, and kicked furniture. Despite the order, Trantalis allowed Curran back home in hopes that he would seek counseling.

“I felt really bad for Danny, which is why I stuck it out with Danny,” Trantalis says. “There was an opportunity here for me to try to help, but I did my best to be patient with him, but, you know, there were episodes where I couldn’t; it was overwhelming.”

Two months later, Curran was arrested on charges of violating an injunction for protection against domestic violence and battery on a person 65 years of age after he allegedly pushed the 72-year-old, grabbed his leg, pulled him down, and then dragged him “approximately 15 feet” across a road. Fort Lauderdale Police Department officers had spotted him in the mayor’s driveway prior to his arrest. This appeared to be Curran’s first arrest.

During Curran’s first appearance, Trantalis said he thought he would be able to “steer him into counseling and mental health treatment” if they had reconnected.

“And I failed at that, and at the end, this past weekend, he threw me to the ground,” he testified. “He committed everything that’s in the information with regard to the violent act against me. And I realized that there was no hope for this relationship.”

Earlier this year, the mayor requested that prosecutors drop the case, believing the active permanent injunction was sufficient to ensure his safety and that Curran would not engage in criminal activity in the future. Just a day before his death, the no-contact order barring Curran from seeing Trantalis was modified, and the couple discussed rekindling their relationship.

“When we met in court last week, we had both expressed not just our love for each other but an opportunity to start all over again,” Trantalis says. “The court was going to require him to go through serious therapy, and he was so happy about that because I was going to participate with him, and it was his birthday the next day, and we were going to go to a restaurant together.

“I actually bought him a beautiful gift for him, which I never told him about.”

A Sudden End

After the hearing on April 8, the pair was allowed to meet in public and communicate via phone. So, they went to Stork’s Bakery and Cafe in Wilton Manors and ate egg salad sandwiches, which neither could finish.

“We were hugging and just so happy to be back,” Trantalis tells New Times. “It had been five months since we had seen each other, except for that one chance moment we ran into each other on New Year’s Eve.”

They spent the rest of the evening at a bar on Wilton Drive for line-dancing night.

“So he says, he said, ‘Come on, I want to teach you, and I was dead tired, but I said, ‘You know what, I need to do this,'” the mayor says. “So it was tragic watching me do that, but we had so much fun.”

Trantalis says Curran was so happy that he sent him a photo of himself smiling when he got home. However, an hour later, he says, Curran sent another photo of himself with a contorted face and said that he couldn’t sleep and was going to take Xanax to try to relax. Curran later said he couldn’t be alone and was going to go to a friend’s house, Trantalis recounts.

“He said, ‘Don’t think there’s any romantic connection. I just need to be somebody and I know I can’t be with you,'” Trantalis tells New Times. “So I thought nothing of it.”

The mayor woke up the next morning at around 8:30 a.m. and texted Curran, “Happy birthday.” Forty-five minutes later, Trantalis received a call that Curran had died. They had plans to celebrate his birthday together that night at Sea Watch on the Ocean, a restaurant that Curran had picked.

The news stunned Curran’s lawyer Philip Johnston.

“We were on a path to a resolution, which would have gotten Danny the treatment he needed and led to the charges being dismissed,” he told New Times on April 9.

Trantalis says Curran never expressed suicidal thoughts. Geerders notes that over the course of their relationship, Curran was depressed but never violent or angry.

“He was constantly depressed,” Geerders tells New Times. “He didn’t like where his life was ever. He didn’t like where he was going.”

Following the news of Curran’s death, several friends and the Fort Lauderdale and Wilton Manors communities memorialized him on Facebook.

“We are deeply saddened to share the passing of Danny Curran, a member of our league community,” the Rainbow Sports League, a LGBTQ sports league, posted on Facebook. “He was part of our group, and this loss is being felt by many of us.”

There will be a memorial service on Saturday at St. Anthony Catholic Church in Fort Lauderdale, and the mayor says he will attend. Both Geerders and Trantalis say they want Curran to be remembered for the person he was, and for the side of him that made everyone smile and laugh.

“I just hope people remember that part of him too,” Geerders tells New Times.