Decision Made in Precinct One Lawsuit
By
KGNS News
Story Created:
Sep 11, 2012 at 10:21 PM CDT
Story Updated:
Sep 12, 2012
In an update to a story we brought you Wednesday morning, the battle for Webb County Commissioner Pct. 1 has taken another step.
A visiting judge ruled in favor of Mike Montemayor Tuesday afternoon. Incumbent Frank Sciaraffa filed a lawsuit on August 24th after the recount showed Montemayor won the election by 10 votes. In the lawsuit, Sciaraffa cites several reasons why Montemayor should not be the one in office. Montemayor's attorney says there were several issues with the lawsuit that the judge took into consideration, but Sciaraffa's attorney says they may move forward with other options.
Jose Becerra, Attorney for Montemayor: "The moment I saw the lawsuit it was really obvious that it, unfortunately, fell away from what the law required. If you look at it, it's a lot of speculation of 'upon belief', 'the chance to', 'an opportunity created', but [it] never really said 'this happened' or 'that happened.'"
Rusty Meurer, Attorney for Comm. Sciaraffa, "There was no winner declared and the judge didn't declare Commissioner Sciaraffa lost the race; he didn't get to any of those issues, because he dismissed the case on legal technicality. Now, we'll be deciding whether or not we'll appeal to the 4th Court of Appeals, there's possibly a way we can appeal directly to the Texas Supreme Court and we're weighing our options."
Montemayor's lawyer tells us the order will be signed today, Wednesday, allowing Montemayor to take office January 1st.
