The civil lawsuit challenging the District 5 supervisor’s
election results was dismissed Thursday when a judge granted a
request to do so
– ending a contentious chapter to the highly scrutinized March
race.
The civil lawsuit challenging the District 5 supervisor’s election results was dismissed Thursday when a judge granted a request to do so – ending a contentious chapter to the highly scrutinized March race.
Judge Harry Tobias agreed to dismiss the four-month-old suit upon a request of the petitioner Marian Cruz, Supervisor Bob Cruz’s wife. The lawyer for Supervisor-elect Jaime De La Cruz, meanwhile, refused to stop pursuing attorney’s fees from Cruz as part of the dismissal, and signaled he may file further action for that purpose.
The Cruz suit was trying to nullify the March 2 result in favor of a new election in November. It alleged De La Cruz and his campaign adviser broke an array of elections laws, including charges that they illegally returned absentee ballots to the Elections Office and coerced a voter.
Bob Cruz, who lost the race to De La Cruz by 10 votes, spoke out Thursday for the first time since the suit was filed. He acknowledged there wasn’t enough evidence to overturn the 10 votes needed to change the race – which prompted his wife’s decision a few weeks ago to drop the suit.
He still believes the De La Cruz camp broke laws during the campaign, he said. If all the rules had been followed Cruz believes he would have won.
“I am going to my grave knowing I didn’t lose,” he said.
Cruz also slammed the De La Cruz camp and hinted he’s not necessarily riding off into the sunset as a supervisor.
He’s upset that De La Cruz lawyer Mike Pekin continues to pursue attorney’s fees from his wife. Pekin has gone after $20,000 in fees, he said, because they felt the Cruz lawsuit was filed frivolously without evidence to support the claims.
Marian Cruz filed the lawsuit in early April, at the time hoping results of the county’s separate criminal investigation of the election would strengthen the civil case, according to Cruz’s lawyer Harry Damkar. After reviewing it, they realized the evidence wasn’t strong enough to win.
“These people will do anything under the sun,” Bob Cruz said of Thursday’s hearing and Pekin’s attempt for attorney’s fees. “Marian tried to do something fair and square, and just honestly.”
Pekin did not indicate if his client is leaning toward pursuit of attorney’s fees.
“We’re only indicating nothing is settled beyond the fact that Cruz no longer has a lawsuit against De La Cruz,” Pekin said Thursday.
De La Cruz declined to respond to Cruz’s criticism over the attorney’s fees. He’s not in the clear yet, because a criminal investigation into many of the same allegations is still open.
“It’s one hurdle down, one more to go,” De La Cruz said.
De La Cruz and adviser Ignacio Velazquez have denied the allegations in the suit and said elections officials advised them it was OK to return ballots to the county office. They also say Cruz supporters were behind all the accusations in an effort to get him back on the board.
The suit, Cruz said, wasn’t an effort to gain the seat.
“What we were really trying to prove is that these people did wrong,” Cruz said.
Cruz isn’t upset about the dismissal. Nor is he putting the issue behind him. He’s leaving his options open, for now.
He’s still awaiting results of investigations of the District 5 race by the local District Attorney’s Office and Secretary of State’s Office. He said he’ll “put it to rest” once the two agencies complete their probes. The status of both is unclear.
If De La Cruz is found guilty of a felony, Cruz pointed out, he could lose the seat.
“There’s a lot of potentials,” Cruz said. “There are so many things that could happen.”
