Maldonado Cruz Wins Democratic Nomination for Queens Civil Court Judge, Upending Party-Backed Candidate
Lumarie Maldonado Cruz received 61.9% of the vote Tuesday in her rout of Wyatt N. Gibbons, who was selected by Queens Democratic Party officials as their preferred candidate for the seat on the county's Civil Court.
June 27, 2019 at 04:12 PM
3 minute read
While most of the attention from Tuesday's primary elections went toward political upstart Tiffany Cabán's apparent victory in the Queens district attorney race, another insurgent candidate quietly defeated her own party-backed opponent in the Democratic primary for judge of the civil court.
Lumarie Maldonado Cruz received 61.9% of the vote Tuesday in her rout of Wyatt N. Gibbons, who was selected by Queens Democratic Party officials as their preferred candidate for the seat on the county's Civil Court. Out of 69,542 votes cast in the primary, Maldonado Cruz received a total of 43,044 to lock up a 17,006-vote margin in the race, according to the state Board of Elections.
Maldonado Cruz, who described herself as a “dynamic Latina candidate” for civil court judge, said in a tweet Tuesday night that she was “so humbled … by the resounding victory.”
“The people of Queens County have spoken,” she said.
She now advances to the November ballot, where victory on the Democratic ticket is widely expected.
Her campaign did not respond Thursday to requests for comment.
A staff attorney with the Committee on Character & Fitness of the Supreme Court's Appellate Division since 2009, Maldonado Cruz has also worked as counsel and chief of staff in the New York State Assembly, and served two years as a senior court attorney on the New York State Civil Court, according to her LinkedIn page. Before that, she worked as a solo practitioner from 2003 to 2006.
Her candidacy picked up the endorsement of state Sen. James Sanders Jr., who said Queens voters had for too long been “robbed of their right to choose who sits on the bench in our courthouses.”
“It's time we support a candidate who is willing to break that cycle and return the courts back to the people,” he said, according to posts on Maldonado Cruz' Twitter account.
Gibbons, a veteran lawyer, specializes in criminal defense and guardianship law in his Kew Gardens practice and worked for three years at Wolinsky and Wolinsky. A former prosecutor, he served a brief stint in Attorney General's Office for the U.S. Virgin Islands and worked for three years as an assistant district attorney in the Queens DA's office.
Kevin Hanratty, a lawyer from Jackson Heights, is set to be the Republican candidate on the November ballot.
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