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Trumbull County Commissioner Niki Frenchko has filed a motion for partial summary judgment in her federal lawsuit against the county, the sheriff's department, the sheriff, a county commissioner and a former commissioner stemming from her July 7, 2022, arrest.
Frenchko's attorneys filed the motion Friday on five of the lawsuit's 14 counts. Summary judgment is a court ruling based on statements and evidence without going to trial.
Frenchko's attorneys also asked U.S. District Court Judge J. Phillip Calabrese to sanction the defendants on claims they "unlawfully purged every single text message from their cellphones to destroy evidence of their conspiracy and intent to retaliate against Commissioner Frenchko's viewpoints."
Those named in the lawsuit, filed April 17, besides the county and sheriff's department are Sheriff Paul Monroe, Commissioner Mauro Cantalamessa, former Commissioner Frank Fuda and deputy Sgts. Robert Ross and Harold Wix, who arrested Frenchko at a July 7, 2022, commissioners meeting, on a fourth-degree misdemeanor charge of disrupting a public meeting. The charge later was dismissed by a visiting judge at the request of a special prosecutor.
Matt Miller-Novak of Cincinnati and David Betras of Canfield, Frenchko's attorneys, asked Calabrese to rule in their client's favor on five counts.
They are: the defendants violated her 1st Amendment right to free speech as well as retaliation (two separate counts), her 14th Amendment right to due process, her 4th Amendment rights for unlawful arrest and unlawful seizure, and destruction of public records.
"This is a case about a government which abused its police powers to retaliate against an elected official for making critical statements about the sheriff and his political allies," the Frenchko filing reads. "Plaintiff Niki Frenchko was arrested during her own meeting for responding to defendant Sheriff Paul Monroe's chastising letter that accused her of dishonesty and demanded a public apology."
Fuda said Saturday of Frenchko: "This lady can say whatever she wants and gets away with it. I've never dealt with anyone that crazy. I don't agree with her getting any money. Her objective from the beginning was to get a big lawsuit against the commissioners. I wouldn't give that lady a penny. I did nothing to get her arrested. She lied."
Frenchko's suit states the issue began June 1 when she read a letter at a commissioners meeting "from someone who held herself out as the mother of a previously incarcerated male at the Trumbull County jail." The letter claimed the inmate didn't receive proper medical care.
The next day, Monroe wrote a letter chastising Frenchko for reading the mother's letter during a public meeting. Monroe said he investigated the allegations and disagreed with Frenchko's statements. His letter demanded a public apology.
On the day Frenchko was arrested, Paula Vivoda-Klotz -- then the commissioners clerk who later received a $370,000 settlement from the county over alleged harassment from Frenchko -- started to read Monroe's letter at the meeting.
The suit alleges that as soon as Frenchko began to respond, "defendants began texting one another. In fact, upon information and belief, the defendant deputies and the defendant commissioners were communicating with Sheriff Monroe," according to the lawsuit.
Eventually, Cantalamessa told Frenchko she was beginning to disrupt the meeting. Then the two deputies ordered Frenchko to stand up, and Wix "offensively yanked the chair she was sitting in for no apparent necessary reason," the suit states. She was escorted from the meeting and arrested.
Frenchko claimed the arrest was a "setup."
Fuda said Saturday he was "surprised" Monroe arrested Frenchko as others have acted inappropriately at those meetings and were never arrested.
Attempts Saturday to reach Cantalamessa, Monroe and the county's attorneys were unsuccessful.
In the county's attorneys' May 10 response to Frenchko's lawsuit, they stated "there was probable cause" for her arrest, the defendants "acted in good faith," "acted lawfully at all times," and some of the claims are not before the proper jurisdiction. The attorneys also wrote the defendants are entitled to immunity.
In Frenchko's latest motion, her attorneys said the defendants "dislike Frenchko and her viewpoints," and referred to commissioner meetings as being "like the Wild West," adding: "As a normal course of business, defendants' meetings were chaotic and all the commissioners regularly and repeatedly interrupted each other and said unkind things to one another."