An Ohio cop is suing the sheriff over her wrongful arrest, snatching her child and sharing explicit photos that were on her phone.
Officer Miranda L. Brothers of the Mantua Police Department is suing the Portage County Sheriff’s Office for $150,000 and claiming the office exercised a frightening abuse of power.
The 29-year-old single mom’s lawsuit blasts the sheriff’s department for malicious prosecution, constitutional violations, intentional emotional distress, and grave misconduct.
Brothers adds that there was never any evidence to support the lurid allegations against her.
The lawsuit states that her horror show began late in 2023 when investigators launched a probe into her parenting, focusing on an unsubstantiated claim she left her five-year-old son with a convicted sex offender.
But surveillance revealed there was no such conduct, supporting a third detective’s finding that the allegations were “unfounded” and “inaccurate.”
However, on New Year’s Day 2024, sheriff’s deputies pulled Brothers over, seized her phone and the boy’s tablet, and removed her son from her custody.
The cop was charged with child endangerment the next day with the sheriff’s office doubling down on the sex offender narrative.
Her phone revealed no evidence of criminal conduct, detectives determined and testified to at a hearing in April.
Her complaint states: “The testimony at the April 15, 2024 motion hearing verified that no detective had witnessed Juvenile A engage in unsupervised contact with a registered sex offender.”
Still, Brothers was suspended from her job, her son placed in foster care and overzealous prosecutors pushed on.
Adding insult to injury, one detective shared Brothers’ “explicit” private photos with his colleagues and pals outside the department.
Her suit alleges: “Despite knowing that the digital images were not relevant to any criminal charge, Detective John Doe shared and/or disseminated these digital images within the Portage County (Sheriff’s) Office and potentially further.”
Her legal team called the conduct “so extreme and outrageous (that it) went beyond all possible bounds of decency.”
“They went through (the phone), found no evidence of wrongdoing, and then shared private, explicit photos entirely unrelated to the investigation,” lawyer Eric Fink told WOIO, adding that the charges took a terrible emotional toll on Brothers.
Particularly devastating was losing custody of her son.
The charges were finally dropped in July and she has since returned to duty, but numerous questions remain
“We are still trying to understand why this investigation was even opened,” Fink said, noting that the babysitter on the day in question was a respected off-duty police dispatcher.
The Portage County Sheriff’s Office has not commented on the allegations.
@HunterTOSun