Haitian-American City Commissioner Michael Joseph, who proposed the reprimand, said from the dais that after DeFillipo made his comments on social media, someone called Joseph with a death threat.
"That rhetoric, I think, was the principle cause that I was called and left at least one message that threatened my life," he said, according to a clip of the meeting. "It bothered me a lot and, to this day, still does."
DeFillipo didn't immediately respond to a message from New Times.
This is, to put things mildly, not the first time DeFillipo has gotten himself in trouble by Posting Too Hard. In 2017, he shared an Islamophobic and obviously fake news story about how the U.S. Supreme Court had abolished the teaching of Islam in public schools. He shared the false post and wrote, "Here comes the sun! America grew balls again!" He later deleted the post.
DeFillipo was elected mayor after the city's previous leader, George Vallejo, pleaded to charges he'd spent campaign money on personal items. (New Times later obtained transcripts of sworn testimony in which Vallejo admitted that his family also accepted money from a prominent, Trump-tied local developer and that Vallejo created shell companies to hide the payments from the public.) DeFillipo also helped push plans to privatize the city's waste-management services and water-treatment plant — in 2018, New Times reported that the private contractors who won those bids then funneled campaign donations to DeFillipo.
DeFillipo himself has a thin skin when it comes to comments about his heritage. In 2018, he filed a $2 million libel lawsuit after the union American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees sent mailers comparing him to fictional Mob boss Tony Soprano and saying he was part of a "crime family."
His latest controversy came after the city voted to fire its former clerk, Pamela Latimore. DeFillipo opposed her termination and was the lone commissioner to vote against the move. After the vote, he hopped onto Facebook and launched into a since-deleted tirade:
Anthony DeFillipo / Facebook
The Facebook post, naturally, pissed off the Haitian-American politicians on the dais — Fleurimond, Joseph, and Paule Vilard. Joseph said he found the mayor's comments unacceptable, especially because this wasn't DeFillipo's first offensive incident on social media.
"Sadly, these comments can only be viewed as race-baiting," Joseph said from the dais. He said DeFillipo had been given an opportunity to apologize earlier that week but refused.
Joseph then asked a city attorney to explain to the other people on the dais that a formal "censure" is simply a letter of reprimand for someone's conduct. But both DeFillipo and Commissioner Phyllis Smith still seemed as if they did not understand the difference between being "censured" and "censored." DeFillipo at one point launched into a speech about how "censorship" was anti-American and violated his First Amendment rights.
"I am elected to be honest and to vote on my conscience and tell the truth to the people," he said. "And that's what I will do, good or bad. If Mr. Joseph does not like it or agree with my opinions, then Mr. Joseph can express his own opinions, and the people can decide. I will never vote to censor any of my colleagues for expression and expressing their opinions. North Miami Beach is a democracy, not a dictatorship. It is un-American to try to censor public officials for telling the truth."
In a different section of the exchange, Fleurimond tried to explain to DeFillipo that he is also the child of immigrants himself.
"I believe you're half-Cuban and half-Italian?" Fleurimond asked.
"I'm American," DeFillipo curtly responded, seemingly unaware of the point Fleurimond was trying to make.
Later, Smith also asked whether DeFillipo could still have his right to "free speech" if he was going to be "censored." Commissioner Fortuna Smukler interjected to explain that the commission was not actually "censoring" anyone.
"It's censured, not censored," she said. The commission then voted to reprimand the mayor.
