Forgery accusations revisited in Catherine Miranda race

• State investigated Rep. Catherine Miranda for campaign fraud
• Case was closed after Ben Miranda%2C the primary focus of the investigation%2C died last year
• Miranda%2C Marquez sparring in bitter primary for Arizona Senate

Allegations that state Rep. Catherine Miranda's campaign forged voter signatures during the last election cycle are being rekindled as she faces a bitter Democratic primary fight in her run for state Senate.

Miranda's opponent in the Aug. 26 primary, Army reservist Aaron Marquez, has made her past legal woes a focal point of the campaign. He is accusing Miranda of dodging questions over whether she committed campaign fraud during the 2012 election.

The rivals are duking it out for their party's nomination in solidly blue Legislative District 27, which encompasses south Phoenix and parts of Guadalupe and Tempe.

Marquez's jabs are centered around a now-closed criminal investigation by the Arizona Attorney General's Office into Miranda and her late husband, Ben, over allegations of forgery on campaign documents, including petitions seeking Clean Elections Commission money for her re-election race.

In 2012, state elections officials rejected Catherine Miranda's request for public campaign funding because a random check of voter names on her petitions suggested that 19 percent were invalid.

Two Phoenix residents at the time filed complaints with the Clean Elections Commission, saying their signatures had been forged on her petitions.

"Somebody forged their signature, and nobody was held accountable for that," Marquez said. "It's very clear to me that this is a case of having a bad apple in the Democratic Party that needs to be weeded out."

The state Attorney General's Office closed its investigation after Ben Miranda died last November. A spokeswoman said he had become the primary focus of the investigation.

Miranda said she and her late husband are innocent and did not gather the signatures in question, suggesting one of the campaign's many volunteers could have been responsible. She has often responded to Marquez's attacks by evoking Ben Miranda's name, saying he is not here to defend himself or explain details of the case.

"I don't think I need to answer any questions that aren't issues anymore," Catherine Miranda said. "They're using (Ben's) death to try to squeeze blood out of a turnip. ... I have moved on from it."

Miranda said she is focused on issues of concern to the district and expects this kind of an attack from an "inexperienced candidate" like Marquez. She has criticized him for lacking "roots" in the community, where she was born and raised.

Marquez has blasted Miranda during two recent debates and in a piece that hit mailboxes over the weekend.

The attorney general's investigation also examined allegations of embezzlement and claims that Miranda's signature on her sworn nomination paper differed significantly from her signatures on other campaign documents.

In his recent mailer, Marquez emphasizes that Miranda plead the Fifth — her constitutional right not to testify against herself — when she faced a civil lawsuit from a GOP leader accusing her of allowing her signature to be forged on campaign documents. A judge dismissed that suit because it wasn't filed soon enough.

"None of this is personal," Marquez said. "This is just basic following the rules. She did not address it directly at all."

Miranda, who has rarely spoken about the case, said Ben Miranda was the only person who could answer questions about the signature on those documents. When pressed for an explanation, she added that there's nothing unlawful about a spouse signing a document on behalf of their partner if there's no "intent to deceive."

"When there's no intent to deceive, there's nothing wrong," Miranda said. "Ben would be the person to talk to."

The couple's attorney, Tom Ryan, said Ben Miranda signed an initial filing document for his wife in 2012 because she was traveling out of town, saying there was nothing illegal or immoral about that. Ryan said he advised the Mirandas to plead the Fifth because they were facing what he believed was a politically motivated probe at the hands of Republican Attorney General Tom Horne.

Ryan said the state's decision to drop the case after a two-year investigation shows the Attorney General's Office hadn't "found jack squat" against the Mirandas.