Denise Galvez Turros wants judge to kick Rolando Escalona off Miami ballot

It’s become a tradition in Miami to establish a new residency so you can run for office. And District 3 Commission candidate Rolando Escalona admitted to Ladra that he had moved to a small apartment in East Little Havana after his home, a duplex in West Little Havana, was drawn out of the district and into District 4 in the redistricting process.
So Denise Galvez Turros, who is also running in District 3, fulfilled another tradition: She filed a lawsuit earlier this month to try to get him kicked off the ballot over what she calls a “sham” residency — with less than two weeks left before the election is decided. Ladra wrote about the discrepancy. But instead of letting voters decide, Galvez Turros wants a judge to decide who lives where.
The trial is set for next Tuesday — just six days before the Nov. 4 election — and three days after early voting starts Saturday. Because, you know, nothing says “democracy” like trying to knock your opponent out of the race when people have already started casting ballots.
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Filed in Miami-Dade Circuit Court, the lawsuit filed Oct. 14 claims that Escalona doesn’t really live in the apartment he listed on his qualifying papers. The city charter requires candidates to live continuously in the district they are running in for a year. Galvez Turros says he and his wife actually live in District 4, based on a mortgage refinance agreement they signed in February that lists that address as their “primary residence.”
That, she says, is the “single most compelling piece of evidence” that Escalona is ineligible to run.
Escalona, for his part, says it’s all political theater from “longtime insiders who will do anything to hold onto power.”
“I live where I say I live,” Escalona said in a statement. “I work hard for my community, and I’m running to bring accountability and integrity back to City Hall. I am a resident of District 3 and am proud to call this community my home.”
His attorney, former state Rep. Juan-Carlos “JC” Planas, who lost a race last year for supervisor of elections, argues that Escalona meets every residency requirement under the law — and that the whole case is “baseless and part of a coordinated political strategy” by Miami’s “entrenched power structure” to eliminate a legitimate threat to the establishment.
“Any suggestion otherwise is a deliberate distortion of facts designated to mislead voters and manipulate the media narrative during a critical election,” Planas said.
That might not be far off. Because let’s be real: Galvez Turros has been going after Escalona for weeks in glossy, expensive mailers that practically scream desperation. And now she’s asking a judge to get Escalona out of the race altogether, because she doesn’t think she can beat him fair and square.
Political observers say that both Galvez And Escalona are competing for a slot on the runoff ballot against former Commissioner Frank Carollo, brother to Joe, who used to represent the district eight years ago. Because the other three candidates — Yvonne Ballona, Brenda Betancourt and Oscar Elio Alejandro — aren’t a threat to anyone. Ladra bets Galvez hasn’t even checked to see if any of them really live in the district. But she went out of her way to get Escalona’s business records, which show the 26th Avenue address, and his wife’s business records.
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Miami-Dade Civil Court Judge Beatrice Butchko Sanchez, in granting an emergency motion to expedite proceedings, zeroed in on another detail entirely: a homestead exemption on another property outside the district — claimed by Escalona’s wife, Astrid Gonzalez Nieto, and first reported right here on Political Cortadito.
The judge — who was assigned the case after Judge Abby Cynamon recused herself on Tuesday, said it was a presumption thqt the husband and wife would live together and noted they can only have one homestead exemption. “If you’re claiming a homestead exemption for one property,” she said, “that’s your homestead. Unless somebody’s willing to admit that that’s fraudulent.”
Planas pushed back, saying Escalona has no homestead exemption and that plenty of political couples live separately for residency purposes. “If the property appraiser wants to go after Mrs. Escalona for homestead fraud, that’s a completely separate issue,” he said.
Really? Did JC just throw the candidate’s wife under the bus?
Also, the judge didn’t care. The candidate is just as guilty by association. “I don’t understand how you could be running for an elected position and at the same time have your spouse not following the law when it comes to homestead exemption,” Butchko Sanchez said.
It’s almost like she works for the Galvez campaign. But the optics are messy. Especially in Miami, where residency rules have a long history of being — how shall we say — flexible.
“Mr. Escalona’s sham residency is fatal to his candidacy,” Galvez and her attorney, Reid Levin, say in the complaint. “Mr. Escalona cannot swear to his bank that his primary residence is outside the district while swearing to the city clerk that his continuous residence is within it. This documented pattern proves his intent was never to make the District 3 address his permanent, fixed home.”
But the argument falls hard on one thing: The home he used to live in was in District 3 until they carved it out during a ridiculous redistricting process that ended in court settlement and a judicial order. Escalona is only outside the district because of that. He’s just doing the same thing that Commissioner Miguel Gabela did so he could keep running in District 1, where he always lived, after his house was drawn out of the district intentionally (it was eventually drawn back in). He moved to establish residency. There is nothing illegal about that.
And, as much as she’d like to, Galvez — whose campaign has been smeared with her old arrests for DUI (2010) and credit cards theft (1994) — doesn’t have the first clue about anybody’s intentions. Escalona, whose wife and mother were living at the duplex when he first moved to Little Havana, has since signed a lease on a larger apartment in the same building, because they are expecting their first child. They could rent out the duplex. They could sell it. They could do a lot of things.
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And even if Judge Butchko Sanchez sides with Galvez, it may not matter.
By now, ballots are printed, mailed, and already being returned. Early voting starts Saturday. Miami-Dade Elections lawyer Oren Rosenthal said it’s too late to remove anyone’s name. The most the court could do is order signs posted at polling places — telling voters that ballots cast for Escalona won’t count — and suppress results after the fact.
And who does this help the most? Why, Frank Carollo, of course. He’s going to head into a runoff against a wounded soldier, either way. He’s just sitting back and enjoying the show.
Because this lawsuit looks less like a good-faith challenge and more like a last-ditch Hail Mary from a candidate who knows she’s behind. Would Galvez Turros be taking this to court if Escalona wasn’t making inroads out there? She may be hoping to win in court what she seemingly can’t win at the ballot box. Because in Miami, if you can’t beat ’em… you sue ’em.
And, if she doesn’t get him kicked off the ballot, it could go either way. Voters might be twice bitten, all of a sudden shy to vote for someone who they aren’t sure lives in their district. Or, if they know Escalona, and they know he has always lived in D3 — and moved precisely so he could still represent them — they could see Galvez as an opportunist and decide not to reward her.

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The post Denise Galvez Turros wants judge to kick Rolando Escalona off Miami ballot appeared first on Political Cortadito.

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