Moises Rodrigues will be sworn in as mayor of Brockton on Monday, as scheduled, after a Plymouth County Superior Court judge rejected a request from Jean Bradley Derenoncourt to delay the ceremony.
Both men vied in the 2025 campaign to become the first person of color elected mayor of Brockton, which is majority Black. Rodrigues is an immigrant from Cape Verde and Derenoncourt is an immigrant from Haiti.
Derenoncourt finished second in the race. He requested a recount, which confirmed Rodrigues won the election. The initial tally showed him beating Derenoncourt by 260 votes, and the recount showed a win of 259 votes.
Derenoncourt had promised even before the recount took place to sue if it failed to overturn the election’s result. In court documents filed on Christmas Eve, he cited a number of alleged irregularities surrounding the election but focused on claims that, at several polling places, representatives of the Rodrigues campaign — including Rodrigues’ wife — told elderly Cape Verdeans how to vote even though they had not requested assistance.
Derenoncourt has asked the city of Brockton to provide surveillance video he says would conclusively prove those claims. So far, the city has not done so, despite a Dec. 11 order from the secretary of the commonwealth’s office to comply with the request.
He also requested to move the legal challenge to a court outside of Plymouth County, alleging that Rodrigues and his associates have undue influence over the region’s court system.
Mark Lawton, an attorney for Rodrigues, told GBH News there is no merit to Derenoncourt’s allegations of voter interference.
In a ruling Friday, Judge Daniel J. O’Shea rejected both the request to move to another court system and to delay the inauguration. He said the harm done to Rodrigues and Brockton’s Elections Commission by postponing the inaugural would be greater than the harm done to Derenoncourt by allowing the inauguration to proceed as his lawsuit against the city’s Elections Commission moves forward.
“In balancing the interests, I have considered that an injunctive order halting the transfer of power scheduled for Monday, January 5, 2026 would result in a delay of leadership authority and concomitant responsibilities,” O’Shea wrote. “The effects of such a delay are important and tip in favor of Rodrigues, as Mayor-Elect.”
Mary LaCivita, who served as Derenoncourt’s campaign manager and is now one of the attorneys representing him, struck an upbeat note after Tuesday’s rulings, noting that the parties are currently scheduled to return to court on Jan. 14 to establish an expedited trial schedule.
“It’s not a setback,” she said. “It is a very high standard to meet, to be able to get the preliminary injunction to stop a swearing in. We are just going to need to prove our case, which we always needed to do regardless of the preliminary injunction.”
LaCivita also played down the judge’s refusal to change venues, saying Derenoncourt’s team now believes his case will be treated fairly in Plymouth County.
Lawton, Rodrigues’ attorney, struck a very different note Friday, saying O’Shea’s refusal to delay Rodrigues’ inauguration or move the case out of Plymouth County attest to the weakness of Derenoncourt’s case.
“I knew that that would happen because there was no basis for either,” Lawton said. “It was a baseless, frivolous cause of action and the judge did what he was compelled to do.
“Moises will be sworn in on Monday at 10 a.m.,” Lawton added. “Right now he’s the mayor-elect, and he’ll become the mayor on Monday.”
