Bayfront Park Management Trust board member Charles Martell has trouble keeping up with code violations against his properties.
Carlos Martell, the city of Miami board appointee charged with battery against filmmaker and civic activist Billy Corben, has a long trail of code violations as a local real estate investor.
Martell, a 64-year-old board member of the Bayfront Park Management Trust, was caught on video charging at Corben, grabbing the documentarian’s hand in an attempt to take his phone during an Aug. 13 trust meeting that devolved into chaos. Police officers who were present when the incident happened, including Kenia Revilla, sergeant at arms for Miami City Commissioner and trust chairman Miguel Gabela, did not immediately arrest Martell.
After Revilla pulled Martell away from Corben, she then had to stand in the way of Gabela, who got up from his chair and charged at Corben. Gabela accused Corben of filming his wife, who was also at the meeting recording Corben with her phone camera. The commissioner repeatedly yelled, “Get off my wife!”
Five weeks later, on Sept. 18, the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office charged Martell with misdemeanor battery. He was issued a summons to appear for an Oct. 8 arraignment, court records show.
“I was sitting there filming with five other people recording too, including a court reporter brought in by the trust,” Corben told The Miamian. “This guy felt empowered to charge at me and grab me. We can’t allow our public meetings to descend into violence and third world thuggery.”
Martell, who is also a general contractor, did not respond to a voicemail and text message left on a cellphone listed as his primary contact number in public databases. He has not yet retained a criminal defense lawyer, the court docket for his case shows. Miami-Dade assistant prosecutor Kimberly Rivera, who recently won a murder case against a defendant claiming self-defense, is handling the case against Martell.
Martell’s lengthy code violation record
For more than two decades, Martell has been buying and selling residential properties, primarily in poor neighborhoods in Miami-Dade County, via his namesake firm, county official records show. For instance, he bought a six-unit apartment building in Goulds, an unincorporated neighborhood in southwest Miami-Dade, for $50,000 in 2005 that he immediately flipped for $65,000. The same year, he bought a four-bedroom house in Liberty City for $50,000 that he sold nine years later for an undisclosed amount.
In 2015, he sold a three-bedroom house in Miami’s Buena Vista neighborhood for $361,000 when the area was gentrifying. The property was the subject of at least six liens for code violations issued by the city of Miami, official records show. Martell resolved the code violations, according to lien releases filed by the city. Other properties Martell has owned followed a similar pattern.
Currently, Carlos Martell Inc. only owns two vacant lots at 1360 Northwest 34th Street in Miami’s Allapattah neighborhood and at 6821 North Miami Avenue in Little River. He's owned both properties since 2004, records show.
In May, the city of Miami filed a lien against the Little River lot after the code enforcement board ruled Martell had failed to maintain the property in a safe and clean condition. Carlos Martell is being hit with a $150 daily fine until the code violation is fixed, according to official records.
Despite his lengthy code violation history, Martell made it on to the Bayfront Park trust’s board in 2024 when he was appointed by Miami City Commissioner Miguel Gabela, whose district includes Allapattah. After joining the board, Martell’s name popped up in a 2025 federal whistleblower and retaliation lawsuit filed by two former trust employees, Jose Suarez and Jose Canto.
In the complaint, Martell allegedly suggested Canto be immediately fired based on defamatory statements made by former Miami City Commissioner Joe Carollo, who previously chaired the trust. The lawsuit was settled in May.
Is Martell still on the trust?
On Monday, Sept. 21, Corben emailed Miami City Manager James Reyes and Miami City Attorney George Wysong seeking clarity on whether Martell is still on the trust board. Martell was a no-show for the trust’s Sept. 14 meeting.
In recent years, Corben has become a fixture at local government meetings, speaking truth to power about the corruption and unethical behavior that is part and parcel of local governance in the Magic City and South Florida. Channeling the late civic watchdog Al Crespo, Corben unapologetically calls out public officials while also engaging in gonzo-style civic journalism via his social media channels and weekly podcast, #BecauseMiami.
In his correspondence, Corben noted that Revilla, Gabela’s sergeant at arms, and another police officer did not arrest Martell even though he immediately made a complaint about being battered. Given Martell made physical contact while in his official capacity as a trust board member during an official public meeting, Corben requested clarification about the trust board member’s status.
Billy Corben is pushing city officials to hold Martell accountable for attacking him during the Bayfront Park Management Trust’s Aug. 13 meeting.
Corben also asked if city officials initiated “any administrative, legal or ethics review concerning [Martell’s] continued service” and “who has the legal authority to suspend or remove Mr. Martell from the trust?”
“Given that the criminal charge concerns alleged conduct occurring during an official city board meeting,” Corben wrote “I believe the public deserves clarity regarding Mr. Martell’s present status and the city’s policies governing circumstances such as these.”
In a phone interview with The Miamian, Corben said he is determined to hold Martell accountable.
“The sergeant of arms saw [Martell] get up, she followed him and she was reaching for his left arm because she saw him reaching for me,” Corben said. “What would have happened if the roles had been reversed and I had charged one of the board members? I would have been laying on the floor with my teeth knocked out and taken to jail.”
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