E-bike with no battery on Miami Beach boardwalk?

I was recently riding my old e-bike on the Miami Beach boardwalk and I got stopped by a policeman. He told me I couldn’t ride a motorized vehicle on the path and I explained to him and that my e-bike had no battery (you could clearly see the port and that the battery was removed) but he didn’t care. He said he would give me a $130 ticket if I continued on the path and didn’t ride on the street.

Is this justified? It was evident that my bike did not have a battery on it and that there was nothing else powering it other than my two legs lol. The battery died years ago.