Belmont County Sheriff David Lucas is legally challenging allegations looking to remove him from office.

Lucas's opponent in the sheriff's race in November, Dick Flanagan, filed a Quo Warranto in the Ohio Supreme Court earlier this month. His attorney, Mark Landers, is looking to remove Lucas from office, alleging he's not qualified for the position.

Now, Lucas has obtained his own legal counsel, who filed a response in the Ohio Supreme Court just yesterday.

On Tuesday, Lucas' attorney, Christopher Gagin, filed an official response with the court.

Ssheriff Lucas has been consistent in terms of saying that he really didn't want to try this in the press and he was just going to focus on his job, but the allegations were so outrageous that we felt it necessary to put this out there," Gagin said.

Specifically, the action against Lucas alleges that he was a resident of the state of Florida and had not paid Ohio income tax for four years, from 2007 to 2011.

"I have information to believe that he bought a house in 2010, which he never listed on his application to be sheriff. So, he is conveniently now categorizing that as a vacation home," Landers said.

These are allegations Gagin denies. He said Lucas is putting everything on the table.

"The sheriff has voluntarily released his tax returns from 2007 to 2011 to show that that allegation is absurd," Gagin said.

"He has produced income tax returns during that period of time, but what he's not produced is this: he's never produced anything to show that he was a full-time law enforcement officer. There's nothing to show that he has acted in a supervisory position as required by the statute to become sheriff," Landers said.

"We are bringing this information now including records from the sheriff's department to show that he was performing the supervisory functions that he did prior to his retirement," Gagin said.

The next step is for Landers to file a response by March 8. Landers said he plans on doing just that.