Local News

Hearing Held In Regalado Lawsuit Aimed At Booting Gimenez From Race

November 2, 2016 / 5:52 PM EDT / CBS Miami

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MIAMI (CBSMiami) – After a hearing Wednesday, a judge announced they'll make a final decision Thursday on an amended complaint that Miami-Dade mayoral candidate Raquel Regalado made looking to disqualify her opponent – Mayor Carlos Gimenez – from the race.

The hearing was part of a lawsuit filed by Regalado claiming Gimenez violated a Florida statute during the qualifying period.

Regalado filed an amended complaint Monday, hours after a judge denied her request saying her motion to toss Gimenez from the race was flawed.

As part of the new filing, Regalado says Gimenez aided and abetted the Supervisor of Elections and violated a Florida Statute in the process. It also claims Gimenez is not properly qualified for the race.

According to the complaint, Gimenez violated a Florida statute in using a campaign check instead of a cashier's check to qualify him to be in the mayoral race after the first check reportedly had an invalid date.

The lawsuit argues this would be a reason to disqualify him from the race even though Florida law only requires a cashier's check if the first qualifying check has been returned.

The Supervisor of Elections said no check was returned or declined by the bank.

While processing Gimenez's qualifying paperwork, the Miami-Dade County Elections Department notified Gimenez of the error of the date on the check, the lawsuit claims.

Regalado's attorneys argue this was an "unlawful" move by the department and the Supervisor of Elections (SOE) since it is not under their scope of work to determine that the check was not accurate.

Gimenez's camp is calling the lawsuit a "Hail Mary Pass" because Regalado is behind by 22 points according to a recent Bendixen Amandi poll.