Maureen Saunders Scott will not appear on the November ballot as "Moe Saunders." Instead, her name will appear as "Mo Saunders Scott," a compromise she agreed to after a more than eight-hour hearing at the Miami-Dade County Courthouse.
Judge Robert T. Watson capped the lengthy and frequently contentious hearing by ruling that Scott could run using her long-established nickname and maiden name, without her married name, Scott, tacked on at the end.
He rejected assertions by lawyers representing her nephew and opponent in the race for House District 106, former Rep. Joe Saunders, that her candidacy was motivated solely by familial spite and greed.
In doing so, Watson cited several past court cases over ballot names, including Planas v. Planas, Bolden v. Potter, Levey v. Dijols, Jordan v. Robinson. None, he said, provided clear guidance that Scott should be booted from the ballot or prohibited from using the nickname.
Watson initially said he'd likely rule she could appear as "Mo Saunders" on the ballot but would delay issuing an official ruling until noon Friday to give Saunders' lawyers more time to find case laws justifying her removal from the ballot or a forced name-change.
But in a last-minute exchange with Saunders' legal team, Scott agreed to go with "Mo Saunders Scott," something she said she'd be fine with "if it will keep me from having to come all the way down here again."
It remains to be seen how she'll campaign in a district she lives 300 miles from if she's reluctant to visit the area over the next few months.
Watson noted Scott had provided proof she'd used "Moe" and "Mo" as nicknames for years. Case law provides that a candidate is not obligated to run under their maiden name.
"I can't find that she clearly intended to deceive and confuse voters," he said, adding that Scott had gone to significant lengths, including driving to Tallahassee twice in one week, opening a campaign bank account, paying filing and qualifying fees and agreeing to relocate to HD 106 if she wins.
"There are many indications here of a serious candidate, and whatever anyone may think her chances are of winning, certainly nobody gave Donald Trump a chance at becoming President," he said. "I don't think the evidence shows by the greater weight of the evidence that this is a sham campaign."
Watson's ruling capped a nearly eight-hour evidentiary hearing in which Saunders' team brought forth evidence Scott had sought a six-figure payment from her family before filing to run against her nephew.
She also said she'd spoken numerous times by phone with HD 106 incumbent Republican Rep. Fabián Basabe, whom she began interacting with on X in February, four months before she entered the race.
"Our case talks about a candidacy that was not in good faith," Saunders' lawyer, Scott Hiaasen, said during closing arguments.
Hiaasen repeatedly brought up an email Scott sent her siblings in 2022 demanding a six-figure share of money from the sale of their childhood home. In the message, she said the payment would be enough for her to discontinue contact with them.
Scott later acknowledged that she wouldn't have run against Saunders if she'd received the money. That, combined with the email, was "evidence of an attempted extortion," Hiaasen said.
Watson dismissed that assertion in his ruling.
"If her goal out of all this was to get money, it doesn't make sense to continue on a campaign when she hasn't been receiving that money," he said. "It's been made clear to her that her understanding of ownership of the property was incorrect, so her claim to the $250,000 was invalid, and she still continued on with the campaign."
What's in a name?
Saunders, a Democrat, filed suit in June against Scott, a no-party candidate who lives in St. Johns County, over what he called a "clear violation of Florida Law."
Scott originally filed to run in HD 106, which covers Miami Beach and several other coastal northeast Miami-Dade municipalities, under her legal name on June 7. Six days later, she drove back to Tallahassee to change her name on the ballot to "Moe Saunders" and pay a $1,187.88 qualifying fee.
Florida Politics first flagged the switch and identified Scott's X account, through which she interacted with Basabe and accused Saunders and other family members of trying to silence her about abuses she said she received at the hands of her brother.
She acknowledged making a $1,700 deposit in her Tallahassee-based campaign account in cash. She also denied Basabe gave her the money or urged her to run.
Scott represented herself without a lawyer Thursday, her lone figure at the defense table standing in stark contrast with Saunders' full table, where a trio of attorneys from the Coffey Burlington law firm represented him.
Throughout the hearing, Scott referenced the sexual abuses she said she suffered from a family member, which allegedly took place years before Saunders was born. She said their family, including Saunders, have repeatedly tried to silence, dismiss and disparage her since.
Judge Watson gave Scott space to discuss her grievances but frequently steered the discussion back to whether Scott should and could have her name appear on the ballot as "Moe Saunders."
She faced several legal hurdles in that aim. One was a state statute lawmakers enacted last year prohibiting candidates from running with nicknames meant to "mislead voters" or imply "the candidate is some other person."
By almost all accounts, Scott's use of the nickname meets both those standards.
Also pertinent was the 2006 case, Planas v. Planas, which generally established that anyone who files under a nickname to trick voters should be disqualified from running. The case arose when former Rep. Juan-Carlos "J.C." Planas, now a candidate for Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections, sued his car salesman cousin Juan E. "J.P." Planas for filing under a previously unused nickname on that year's ballot.
A family member recalls habitual harassment
Three witnesses testified Thursday: Scott, Saunders and Richard Walter Saunders, Scott's other brother and Saunders' uncle. He took the stand first, but remained in the courtroom to watch the hearing play out until its conclusion at around 6 p.m.
Richard Saunders, a clinical psychologist specializing in trauma, corroborated Scott's claim that she has long gone by the nickname, "Mo," but not its masculine version, "Moe." Over the years, he said, she has accused several family members, including his infant grandson, of pedophilia and grooming.
Scott grew especially incensed and resumed hostile contact with family members, he said, after the sale of their mother's home, the money from which went to their nonagenarian mother, but which Scott claims was divided among family members other than her.
In a 2022 email both sides of the case agreed is authentic, Scott wrote to Richard Saunders and their siblings about the money, requesting a quarter of the $1 million sale price.
"I'd prefer to get what's mine and go away," she wrote, adding that there "are children in this family (who) want to be public figures." Richard Saunders said that was "clearly" a reference to Joe Saunders. Scott said two additional young family members had similar aspirations to work in the public eye.
The pair argued back and forth, Richard Saunders on the stand and Scott sitting at the defense table, until Watson interjected.
"Enough," he said. "This is a courtroom, not The Jerry Springer Show."
Scott acknowledged that for years she'd received $2,000 a month from her mother to pay for bills and other expenses. Those payments stopped in September 2022. Seven months later, family members sent Scott a cease-and-desist letter after she'd made disparaging claims against them, including contacting their employers.
In court Thursday, Scott established — with Richard Saunders' corroboration — that she'd revealed her alleged abuse when she turned 30. Scott, now 63, shared with Florida Politics screenshots of messages she said were between her and the other brother in which he acknowledged the alleged abuse.
Joe v. Moe
Joe Saunders took the stand next and, like his uncle, said he'd "never once heard or seen her in writing" refer to herself as "Moe Saunders."
"I think her intention is to ruin my candidacy," he said.
On cross examination, Joe Saunders told his aunt, "You can be unstable, and you can lash out" against family members.
Scott's testimony went much longer, partially because some came through a deposition Saunders gave prior to the hearing, which Saunders' lawyers read aloud.
She admitted to not speaking with any HD 106 voters prior to filing. The last time she was in Miami-Dade before the hearing, she said, was for a Robert Plant concert many years ago. After being told the venue she visited was in Broward County, she estimated the last time she spent any significant time in Miami-Dade was as a child.
Scott said that after she offered Basabe dirt on her nephew in February, Basabe gave her "the brush off" publicly. In private, however, she said he gave her his phone number and that they spoke by phone several times.
She said in one such interaction, she told Basabe that she was running because "I want to slaughter that little bastard (Saunders) in front of everybody."
It is not illegal for a person to run for public office in a district where they do not live, but they must live there by the time they take office if they win. But it is illegal to pay someone to run for public office or receive payment to run. Scott and Basabe have both denied they had such an arrangement.
Asked about a $1,700 deposit she made to her campaign account in June, Scott said she used money she set aside after she stopped receiving "allowances" from her mother, Mickey Saunders. Scott said she got cut off by the family financially in September 2022.
Hiaasen noted the deposit was made in "untraceable cash," intimating she may have received the funds from someone else. Scott said the money can be traced to her mother's checks and that she'd been using cash to lower the cost of home improvements.
She said she hasn't done any campaigning or fundraising yet because she didn't know if she would be allowed to remain on the ballot.
"I didn't want to be in a position where I had to pay anyone back," she said.
Scott also told the court that if her family had recognized the abuses she said she suffered at the time she wrote the email demanding a $1 million cut of the home sale, she wouldn't have filed in HD 106.
"If my family acknowledged what had been done, I would have gone away quietly," she said, adding that she initially contacted Basabe on X while "in the throes of reactive abuse."
"I was pushing back after 30 years," she said. "I even spoke to a Republican who I didn't know."
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