Amen Brown has survived another ballot challenge. But the judge also cited ‘serious concerns’ about his financial disclosures.

Amen Brown survived another attempt to get him kicked off the ballot. He got another stern rebuke from a judge, too.

A judge on Tuesday reproached the state representative from West Philadelphia who is running for mayor for failing to properly disclose debts and financial interests as is required by law. She ultimately gave him the opportunity to file amended paperwork to continue his campaign after the challenge, which appeared to be funded by a rival mayoral candidate.

Brown was lambasted for similar errors less than a year ago when his statement of financial interest to run for state representative omitted several large debts he owed business partners, the city, and the state.

“This is your second bite of the apple,” said Idee C. Fox, president judge of the Common Pleas Court. “There won’t be a third one.”

Fox told Brown she had “serious concerns” about his financial statement and ordered him to file a new one by Friday. She also offered a veiled criticism of his candidacy.

“The city of Philadelphia is a sophisticated city that requires someone who’s able to deal with the financial hurdles and difficulties in the city,” she said. “We are the poorest county in the country, and we need people sophisticated enough to be able to deal with that.”

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Brown, who has served in Harrisburg since 2021, has had a long trail of financial and business challenges. During the hearing, he took the stand and had to answer for several of them, including back taxes owed to the city and debts owed to business partners from day-care businesses he owned and other enterprises.

His attorney, John Raimondi, called the omissions unintentional oversights.

“He did the best he could, and he wasn’t trying to hide any of it,” he said.

The challenge was officially filed by a registered Philadelphia voter but had clear ties to the campaign of grocer Jeff Brown, who is not related to Amen Brown.

Kevin Greenberg, the lawyer who argued to have Amen Brown tossed off the ballot, works for Jeff Brown’s campaign.

The records of people who signed into the City Commissioners’ log to check Amen Brown’s petition signatures show at least nine people with ties to Jeff Brown’s campaign, including deputy campaign manager Olivia Scanlon.

“Jeff Brown had employees from his store and those who worked on his campaign working with Kevin Greenberg, going through the petitions,” said Malik Boyd, Amen Brown’s communications director, after the hearing. “This is an actual attack from Jeff Brown. We expected it. We knew it was coming, but it only confirms what we already knew — that Amen Brown is a threat to Jeff Brown.”

Greenberg declined to comment on any possible connection.

Jeff Brown’s campaign responded to a request for comment by noting that as part of the challenge, about 2,000 signatures on Amen Brown petitions were thrown out (though he ended up with enough to stay on the ballot).

“Sounds like they need to focus more on who’s collecting their signatures and less on who’s challenging them,” Jeff Brown spokesperson Kyle Anderson said.

Amen Brown drew the seventh ballot position in the crowded mayoral race, right above Jeff Brown, who drew No. 8. Two candidates with the same last name could lead to some voter confusion. The candidates are also both appealing to moderate, working-class Black voters.

» READ MORE: Jeff Brown rivals slam him for ethics investigation as Philly mayor’s race heats up

Greenberg said he’ll wait and see whether to challenge Amen Brown’s revised statement of financial interest. He noted in court that Brown has filed six statements of financial interest over the last four years in his bids for the state legislature and for mayor.

“We will see if Mr. Brown gets this right on his seventh try, and if he does, that will be the end of it,” he said. “If he gets it wrong, we’ll deal with that then.”

This week’s hearing brought the scope of Amen Brown’s financial problems back to the forefront. An Inquirer review earlier this year of his financial documents, property records, and court filings showed that Brown’s business and real estate dealings over the last decade have been mired in repeated accusations of legal and financial impropriety.

In early 2022, when he was running for reelection to the legislature, there were more than two dozen liens and judgments against him. But according to the statement of financial interest he filed, he didn’t have a single creditor. A Commonwealth Court judge excoriated him then for “an ignorance and shocking lack of care of the law for a sitting member of Pennsylvania’s General Assembly.”

This time around, Brown was taken to task for omitting some names and addresses of creditors, as well as filling in interest rates owed.

Greenberg argued that Brown’s failure to properly fill out his statement of financial interest — after being taken to court for a nearly identical issue last year — showed Brown was trying to intentionally hide information from voters.

The judge, Fox, said Tuesday that Greenberg didn’t meet the high burden of showing Brown acted in bad faith — but still called Brown’s reports problematic and suggested he get new legal advisers.

» READ MORE: Philly mayoral candidate Amen Brown’s business dealings left a trail of debt, lawsuits, and jilted partners

Brown was also challenged on his petition signatures. Monday was spent analyzing signatures and hearing testimony from people who had circulated petitions for Brown. Ultimately, the judge declined to throw out enough signatures to put Brown in jeopardy of falling short of the 1,000 required to be on the ballot.

Brown has campaigned on his personal story — a kid from West Philadelphia who he says understands the problems challenging the city firsthand. He grew up in poverty, was shot as a toddler, and was briefly jailed at age 19 on felony drug-dealing charges that were later dropped.

His mayoral bid started with some intrigue when he announced at Pennsylvania Society that he planned to run for mayor, with rumors of deep-pocketed New York investors behind his campaign.

But the money never appeared to materialize. As of the last campaign filing, Brown’s campaign reported having just $1,800.

Asked in an interview earlier this month with The Inquirer’s editorial board to name any outstanding people or entities to which he’s indebted, he replied: “I’m indebted to the people.”

“I had these problems my first election, I had those problems the second election, and what did the people do? They showed up to vote for me. People know where my heart is. My heart is pure. I am not up here taking advantage of former business relationships. ... I’m not hiding from anyone.”

Staff writer Chris Brennan contributed to this article.