Diaz, Levine win judicial races

Broward County Judge Robert “Bob” Diaz handily defeated opponent Roshawn Banks in the general election Tuesday, winning a fourth full term to the seat he’s held since 1992.

In other judicial races, Assistant Public Defender Olga Levine defeated private lawyer Robert “Bob” Nichols for a seat on the County Court bench, and Laura Marie Watson appears to have won her bid to become a judge on the 17th Judicial Circuit Court, edging out former County Court Judge Julio Gonzalez in the closest of the three races.

Watson, 52, is former prosecutor who went into private practice and represented homeowners and health care providers in insurance disputes. During the campaign, she touted her experience on behalf of victims of sexual abuse and enforcing municipal codes to crack down on Fort Lauderdale slumlords as part of her qualifications for the bench.

She began her legal career as an assistant state attorney in Fort Myers, then worked as a municipal prosecutor with the city of Fort Lauderdale.

With all precincts reporting, Watson had 50.87 percent of the vote, 9,685 votes more than her opponent in a race with 559,651 ballots cast.

More than30,000absentee and provisional ballots have yet to be counted, with no way of telling whether there are enough to affect the Circuit Court judge’s election.

Gonzalez, who was appointed a County Judge in 2006, went on to lose the 2008 election in a race some observers thought had anti- Hispanic undertones. Two other judges, both Hispanic, were turned out of office at the same time.

This year, Gonzalez received a plurality of votes in the August primary, a three- way race, but failed to capture a majority, which forced the runoff against Watson. Race and ethnicity did not emerge as an issue during the campaign.

The winners in the other races, Levine and Diaz, are also Hispanic.