Bracy demands Thompson drop out of District 15 race over residency issue, threatens lawsuit 

In a press conference last week, Randolph Bracy, the former Democratic state senator, called out the serving Democratic state senator, Geraldine Thompson, who he is challenging for the Senate District 15 seat in the Aug. 20 election, and accused her of living out of district. Bracy threatened to file a lawsuit if she did not drop out of the race by Friday, the candidate qualifying deadline. 

"Leaders can't lead if they're in denial themselves," Bracy said during the June 5 press conference. "There's no record she has lived anywhere but this home in Windermere." 

Thompson and her husband, Emerson R. Thompson, Jr., former chief judge of the Ninth Judicial Circuit Court of Florida, own a home in Windermere, valued at $622,399, where they have a homestead tax exemption. Windermere is in District 13. Her husband, who's also her campaign treasurer, still lives there. Thompson’s campaign documents list the South Street address for the Wells’Built Museum of African American History and Culture, which is in District 15 and where she maintains her district office. She is registered to vote in Ocoee.  

VoxPopuli asked Thompson about the residency issue in mid-May. She said at that time that she had moved into her daughter’s Ocoee home to help with her grandchildren. She told the Orlando Sentinel she moved in 2021, after the districts were redrawn. 

“Legislators can have more than one residence,” she told VoxPopuli in a Zoom interview. “I also share a homestead with my daughter and her husband. She has two-year-old twins, and I'm there to assist and support. And that is in district, and that is my residence.”

Thompson told VoxPopuli that she pays the utilities at her daughter’s home and is registered to vote at that address.  

Thompson “crashed”  Bracy’s news conference, according to Fox35, and claimed that Bracy’s lawsuit threat was merely a “copycat” maneuver, based on the recent complaint filed against State Rep. Bruce Antone by his election opponent, which alleges that he lives out of district.   

Thompson also claimed that Bracy’s lawsuit threat is motivated by, as Fox35 reported, “a romantic relationship with someone in her family that didn’t end well” — a claim that he denied. 

“Nowadays, when someone starts to speak the truth, it’s retaliation or it’s retribution,” Bracy told Fox35. 

Bracy was engaged to one of Thompson’s granddaughters. He is now married to entrepreneur/independent filmmaker Kietta Mayweather Bracy. Their first film collaboration, Ponder, is having its first screening at the Winter Garden Theater Friday.