{"id":443458,"date":"2026-10-31T10:30:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-31T10:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/443458\/"},"modified":"2026-10-31T10:30:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-31T10:30:10","slug":"north-miami-elections-descend-into-courtroom-chaos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/443458\/","title":{"rendered":"North Miami elections descend into courtroom chaos"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Lawyers<\/p>\n

Lawyers converse in Miami-Dade Circuit Court on Friday, Oct. 30, as North Miami Councilwoman Mary Estim\u00e9-Irvin and her opponent, Jobans Jules, decided to drop their efforts to challenge the other\u2019s candidacy in the Nov. 3 election.<\/p>\n

Olivia Lloyd<\/p>\n

Miami Herald<\/p>\n

Chaos has embroiled campaign season in North Miami, where technicalities over cashier\u2019s checks, boilerplate forms and pennies have upended the race for mayor, kicked one City Council candidate off the ballot and threatened to place a second Council race in the hands of a judge.<\/p>\n

Before the city\u2019s 25,000 voters can decide who should represent them on Nov. 3, candidates have sought to have their opponents disqualified \u2014 only to have the finger pointed back at them, questioning whether they\u2019re eligible themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do you come into court and say, \u2018Your Honor, I didn\u2019t comply with the statute, but I want you to kick my opponent off for not complying with the statute,\u2019\u201d Richard Rosengarten, a lawyer hired by the city of North Miami, said after a hearing Friday in a dispute between two candidates.<\/p>\n

So far, judges have disqualified Mayor Alix Desulme<\/a> and District 2 council candidate Hector Medina. Both were bounced over procedural errors in their qualifying fee checks. Medina was disqualified in August, leaving incumbent Kassandra Timothe to face only Brian Jinks. Desulme was booted last week after voters had already begun casting their ballots.<\/p>\n

In a third race on the ballot, Councilwoman Mary Estim\u00e9-Irvin convinced a judge this week to declare that votes cast for opponent Jobans Jules would not count, leaving only the incumbent and candidate Carolina Matamoros in the race. But that decision was undone less than 24 hours later.<\/p>\n

And the legal challenges didn\u2019t end there. Suits generated appeals and counter-suits.<\/p>\n

After Desulme lost the lawsuit filed by his lone opponent, George Morgan, he countersued, pointing out Morgan wrote a check that was 80 cents short of the required qualifying fee. And after Estim\u00e9-Irvin sued her opponent, he sued her right back, filing a complaint that the incumbent\u2019s attorney agreed Friday may have had merit.<\/p>\n

\"North North Miami Mayor Alix Desulme is running against challenger George E. Duell Morgan. Courtesy of the candidates <\/p>\n

Rosengarten, the lawyer for the city, said candidates may need to ask themselves, \u201c\u2018Is a consequence of me coming into court trying to sue my opponent off the ballot that I\u2019m going to get kicked off too?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

A change of heart<\/p>\n

The latest episode in the saga played out in a Miami courtroom on Friday over the District 3 councilmember race and ended in perhaps the most surprising decision of them all amid the litigious drama: The candidates agreed to drop their cases against each other and let the voters decide.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis entire charade was just to deter us from what we should have been doing,\u201d said Jules, who countersued Estim\u00e9-Irvin after she sought to disqualify him.<\/p>\n

\"North North Miami Council District 3 candidates Mary Estim\u00e9-Irvin, Jobans Jules and Carolina Matamoros. Courtesy of the candidates Miami <\/p>\n

The day before, a judge had granted Estim\u00e9-Irvin\u2019s temporary injunction attempting to disqualify Jules for not having a campaign treasurer\u2019s signature on his check. But Jules had already filed a counterclaim accusing Estim\u00e9-Irvin of not qualifying as a candidate because she didn\u2019t check a box designating a primary or secondary depository bank account.<\/p>\n

So back to court they went to weigh the merits of the counterclaim \u2014 before deciding just to end the ordeal and let bygones be bygones.<\/p>\n

Then an 11th-hour development occurred in the middle of the hearing that Jules\u2019 attorney, Hilton Napoleon II, said was practically out of a movie.<\/p>\n

Jules learned he had won an appeal from a higher court preventing the judge\u2019s disqualification order from going into effect right away. He could have reneged on their deal and tried to throw Estim\u00e9-Irvin out of the race, as she did to him. But he didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost people would have said, \u2018I\u2019m not agreeing to anything now \u2026 because she threw the first stone,\u2019\u201d Napoleon said. \u201cAnd he could have easily thrown the stone back, but he chose not to.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked after Friday\u2019s hearing whether she thought the counterclaim had merit, Estim\u00e9-Irvin said she was focused on getting the residents of District 3 to vote.<\/p>\n

Estim\u00e9-Irvin attorney, Dedrick D. Straghn, acknowledged Jules\u2019 claim may have held water.<\/p>\n

\u201cMr. Jules, his countersuit actually brought up a very crucial, I guess defect, in Ms. Estim\u00e9-Irvin\u2019s file,\u201d Straghn said.<\/p>\n

But Straghn said it\u2019s not really a debate whether these candidates need to follow the rules.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe court is very clear on this, even though it seems ticky tacky and hyper technical,\u201d he said. \u201cYou have to meet these requirements, and the statutes are clear on what the requirements are.\u201d<\/p>\n

He still said Friday\u2019s agreement was for the best for both candidates and their would-be constituents.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m pleased for the voters,\u201d he added, \u201cbecause now they get to choose who they want to fill that seat.\u201d<\/p>\n

The legal drama may not be over, however. In the mayor\u2019s race, the Third District Court of Appeal has decided to hear Desulme\u2019s case. Proceedings have been scheduled up to, and possibly through, Election Day.<\/p>\n

Olivia Lloyd<\/a><\/p>\n

mcclatchy-newsroom<\/p>\n

Olivia Lloyd is an Associate Editor\/Reporter for the Coral Springs News, the Pembroke Pines News and the Miramar News. She graduated from Northwestern University\u2019s Medill School of Journalism. Previously, she has worked for Hearst DevHub, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and McClatchy\u2019s Real Time Team.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lawyers converse in Miami-Dade Circuit Court on Friday, Oct. 30, as North Miami Councilwoman Mary Estim\u00e9-Irvin and her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":443459,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":["post-443458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=443458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/443459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=443458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=443458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=443458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}