FACT CHECK: Did Jose Regalado Really Get Paid Over $100,000 from His Father and Sister’s Political Committee?

MIAMI, FL — As Jose Regalado campaigns for a seat on the City of Miami Commission, new questions are surfacing about the financial and political ties that bind him to his well-known family.

Did Regalado really receive over $100,000 from a political committee tied to his father and sister?

According to the Florida Department of Elections, Jose Regalado appears to have received more than $110,000 from the political committee Serving Miamians PC, which was used to support the campaigns of his father, former City of Miami Mayor Tomás Regalado, and his sister, current Miami-Dade County Commissioner Raquel Regalado.

These payments for “Social Media” and “Social Media Consulting” were made over multiple election cycles — 2013, 2016, and 2017 — and are not speculative. They are documented expenditures from the committee's public filings.

At the time of these payments, Jose co-owned a property with his sister at 2424 SW 20th Street, a home that has also been the subject of controversy. According to a Miami Herald report, that address was listed as Raquel’s residence, even as she claimed a homestead exemption on another property, leading to allegations of homestead exemption fraud. The property records and exemption filings raise troubling questions about both transparency and integrity.

Detractors will argue that these apparent financial entanglements paint a clear picture: Jose Regalado’s political trajectory has been closely supported — and financially sustained — by his family’s political machinery. His campaign is being presented as a fresh face for District 4, but do his apparent past ties and payments tell a different story?

As voters consider who will best represent their interests at City Hall, will ties to the same political dynasties that have dominated Miami politics for decades be the undoing of one candidate?