More details have been revealed regarding a civil lawsuit filed by Trumbull County Commissioner Niki Frenchko against multiple employees of the Trumbull County Sheriff's Department and multiple county commissioners.

Frenchko is suing Trumbull County Sheriff, Paul Monroe, along with multiple deputies from the Sheriff's Department, County Commissioner Mauro Cantalamessa, and former County Commissioner Frank Fuda, in reference to an incident where Frenchko was arrested during a meeting in July of 2022.

The lawsuit claims that Frenchko was deprived of her rights as defined by 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for a "ruthless false arrest intended to punish a political adversary for criticizing the County Sheriff in violation of the first, fourth and fourteenth amendments in the United States Constitution, as well as Ohio law."

According to the lawsuit, the criticisms made against Sheriff Monroe had to do with accusations that inmates in the Trumbull County Jail received poor medical treatment.

The lawsuit states that Frenchko read a letter from the mother of an inmate stating that her son requested medical treatment but did not receive proper care during his time in jail during a public meeting.

According to the lawsuit, Sheriff Monroe demanded that Frenchko apologize for these comments and her reading of the letter in a letter of his own, with Clerk Paula Vivoda-Klotz allegedly reading this letter aloud during the meeting also demanding Frenchko apologize to Monroe.

Frenchko refused to apologize, resulting in her being falsely arrested for disrupting a public meeting, according to the lawsuit. 

"Indeed R.C. § 2917.12 permits a government to arrest a person for speech that 'outrages the sensibilities' of a government boards and hurts the government's feelings. This statute facially discriminates against viewpoints, it is vague and it violates the overbreadth doctrine," the lawsuit reads.

The lawsuit mentions two sheriff's deputies who were present throughout the meeting, stating the officers' attendance "abnormal" and alleging that they were only there because Monroe planned to arrest Frenchko.

"Sheriff Monroe later claimed the deputies were there at the request of the other commissioners, but this merely shows that [the commissioners and Sheriff Monroe] were all planning and anticipating a verbal confrontation with Commissioner Frenchko prior to the meeting," the lawsuit reads.

The lawsuit goes on to accuse Sheriff Monroe of multiple incidents of abusing his power to interfere with Frenchko's rights, specifically citing another incident captured on video of Monroe slapping Frenchko's cell phone out of her hand while she was recording a meeting.

The lawsuit mentions that Sheriff Monroe had stated that he "did not consent" to appearing in Frenchko's recording, but asserts that because this was a public meeting, his consent was not necessary for him to appear in the video.

"Indeed it is well established that the Ohio Open Meetings Act guarantees that people may record public meetings. Moreover, it is common sense that videos can and will be present at public meetings," the lawsuit reads.

Commissioner Cantalamessa and former Commissioner Fuda are also mentioned, with the lawsuit stating both commissioners are known to have "passionate disagreements" with Frenchko citing numerous occasions where they are alleged to raise their voices, interrupt each other and level accusations at one another.

In this case, the lawsuit states that Commissioner Cantalamessa interrupted Frenchko during her criticisms of Sheriff Monroe claiming that she was "disrupting" the meeting because she was "talking about the chief law enforcement officer of Trumbull County."

However, the lawsuit accuses Cantalamessa and Fuda of causing the disruption because "they were unable or unwilling to keep quiet and not interrupt Commissioner Frenchko while she was speaking."

The lawsuit later accuses Cantalamessa and the other defendants of deleting and destroying records related to the incident. It is mentioned that the defendants could be seen text messaging each other.

According to the lawsuit, when attorneys requested records of these text messages, the special prosecutor claimed the records were out of his control because they were on personal devices. The lawsuit states that the special prosecutor's claim is not true.

That's why a motion was filed to prevent all defendants in this case from continuing to destroy records and attempting to interfere with Frenchko's right to record public meetings.

"Defendant Mauro Cantalamessa admitted that he allowed his phone to delete text messages. And Commissioner Cantalamessa recently admitted again that his phone deletes public records in a public meeting," the motion read.

21 News has reached out to Commissioner Cantalamessa, who tells us he has no comments at this time.

Commissioner Fuda tells 21 News that he had nothing to do with Frenchko's arrest and argues that Frenchko did interrupt the meeting.

"She never let anybody speak, and that particular case, I felt bad for [Vivoda-Klotz] because [Frenchko] just talked over her," Fuda said.

21 News questioned Fuda on whether or not he and Cantalamessa were text messaging each other during the meeting. Fuda denied texting stating that it would have been impossible for him to do so due to having arthritic fingers.

However, Fuda says he could not confirm nor deny that Cantalamessa was texting at the time.

We've reached out to Sheriff Monroe for comment but have not heard back as of this writing.

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