WARREN, Ohio - Attorneys representing multiple Trumbull County Commissioners and Trumbull County Sheriff Paul Monroe have filed an appeal to a lower court's ruling deeming the arrest of Commissioner Niki Frenchko unlawful.

The ruling stems from an incident during a Trumbull County Commissioners meeting in July of 2022 where Frenchko was arrested after she refused to apologize to Sheriff Monroe for reading a letter from a woman detailing allegations that her son did not receive proper care while incarcerated in the Trumbull County Jail.

The two commissioners and sheriff all allege that Frenchko interrupted former clerk Paula Vivoda-Klotz while she was reading a letter from Sheriff Monroe accusing her of dishonesty and demanding an apology.

The court ruled that Frenchko's First Amendment and Fourth Amendment rights were violated in this arrest.

"Here in America, we are not supposed to arrest our political opponents. The First Amendment does not permit policymakers to abuse their police power to punish their political rivals, and that is precisely what happened in this case," the ruling reads.

However, an appeal filed on behalf of Commissioner Mauro Cantalamessa, former Commissioner Frank Fuda and Sheriff Monroe claim the arrest was lawful and claim that the reason for Frenchko's arrest was not the content of her speech but her conduct during it.

The appeal alleged that Frenchko was disturbing a lawful meeting.

"Ms. Frenchko's repeated disruptions provided ample probable cause for her arrest pursuant to Ohio Rev. Code § 2917.12. Presented with similar circumstances, a reasonable offer would perceive Ms. Frenchko's repeated interruptions to the commissioners' meeting as a violation of the law regardless of the content of her speech," the document reads.

However, documents from the original ruling accused the other two commissioners of disrupting the meeting stating Cantalamessa interrupted Frenchko when she was criticizing Monroe saying "This is getting disruptive ... You are talking about the chief law enforcement officer in Trumbull County. It's unacceptable."

The ruling states Frenchko responded by asking if criticizing the letter from Monroe was actually disruptive.

"It was not [disruptive]. In fact, it was Cantalamessa who was interrupting Frenchko at this point. Fuda decided to continue yelling more at his opponent and he never corrected Cantalamessa for interrupting," the document reads.

The ruling makes further allegations of the parties conspiring to have Frenchko arrested noting alleged text messages with one allegedly saying "You can have her removed for being disruptive in a public meeting."

However, the appeal claims that there is no evidence to support that the commissioners and sheriff communicated via texts or phone calls to plan Frenchko's arrest.

The appeal does not reference a line from the original ruling stating one of the deputies who arrested Frenchko allegedly gave a thumbs up signal to Cantalamessa before immediately proceeding to arrest her.

The original ruling alleges that this gesture was caught on video at the meeting. However the appeal only states that there is no evidence of texts, phone calls or "any other method" to devise a plan to arrest Frenchko.

However, Frenchko is accusing Commissioner Cantalamessa and Sheriff Monroe of destroying the records of their message alleging that is the reason why no records of these communications were found. Frenchko tells 21 News she plans to file a report accusing them of tampering with evidence.

"Not only did they violate the constitution, they committed a crime. They should be in jail. Both of them," Frenchko said.

Frenchko provided the following statement to 21 News:

"Cantalamessa and Monroe, ahead of an election are using taxpayer funds to bail them out of being personally financially responsible for conspiring to violate my constitutional rights."

"Their efforts to overturn this federal judge's decision, which would have them pay for their wrongdoing is a slap in the face to the constitution and the taxpayers who are funding their litigation."

"They should just pay for the mistakes they make out of their pockets like the federal judge wanted. They're not going to experience consequences for their actions unless they have to pay personally."

You can read the appeal, as well as Frenchko's response to it in their entirety in the PDFs below.