Trending
WARREN -- Trumbull County Commissioner Niki Frenchko has filed a response to a summary judgment requested last month by attorneys for current and former Trumbull County commissioners and sheriff's office employees being sued by Frenchko.
The defendants asked U.S. District Court Judge J. Philip Calabrese to grant summary judgment, which is a ruling based on evidence without going to trial. The defendants' motion came days after Frenchko's attorneys, Matt Miller-Novak of Cincinnati and David Betras of Canfield, filed their own motion on five of 14 counts listed in the lawsuit.
Frenchko filed suit April 17 against Sheriff Paul Monroe, Commissioner Mauro Cantalamessa, former Commissioner Frank Fuda and Sheriff's Sgts. Robert Ross and Harold Wix in connection to her July 7, 2022, arrest alleging she disrupted a public meeting.
The fourth-degree misdemeanor charge, filed after Frenchko was accused of repeatedly interrupting the commissioners meeting, later was dismissed.
In her lawsuit, Frenchko's attorneys state the defendants violated her First 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.
In Frenchko's earlier filing, she described the arrest as a "setup."
In their request for a summary judgment, the defendants claim there was no conspiracy to have her arrested and they are entitled to qualified immunity. They also note she does not have a claim for the destruction of public record or destruction of evidence.
In the joint request for a summary judgment, the defendants also noted Frenchko cannot prove her claim of assault, battery and property-related claims arising from a March 9, 2023, meeting, at which her cellphone was knocked from a table.
Her response seeking dismissal of the summary judgment request, filed Friday in U.S. District Court, begins: "It is not just the retaliation -- it is the cover up. Defendants Trumbull County, Trumbull County Commissioners, Trumbull County Sheriff's Department, Paul Monroe, Mauro Cantalamessa, Frank Fuda, Harold Wix and Robert Ross have failed to establish they are entitled to summary judgment on any of plaintiff Niki Frenchko's claims before this Court. Frenchko is the only woman on the Trumbull County Board of Commissioners and she is the first Republican elected for that board in a significant period of time. Frenchko defeated the Democratic County Chairman in her election and she advocated to hold defendants accountable and defendants were not happy about it."
In the filing, Frenchko claims defendants used an "overbroad statute" to retaliate against Frenchko for her critical viewpoints about Sheriff Monroe and the county jail. She also claims that interruptions and boorish behavior were the norm -- not the exception -- in defendants' meetings.
"After receiving multiple public records requests, a preservation order and spoliation notices, Defendants willfully deleted every single text message they sent to one another for a period of three months. Every text message Defendant Monroe sent is gone. Every text message that Defendant Ross sent is gone. Every text message that Defendant Wix sent is gone. Defendant Cantalamessa deleted all his text messages. More than nine County agents deleted approximately 90 days' worth of public records and evidence to cover-up Defendants' conspiracy to punish Frenchko. Now, while simultaneously arguing that Frenchko has not suffered any harm resulting from Defendants' willful destruction of these records, Defendants are brazenly attempting to convince this Court to grant them immunity because Frenchko does not have the evidence Defendants willfully destroyed. This Court should not tolerate Defendants' attempts to benefit from their flagrant destruction of evidence, or every police force in the Northern District of Ohio will learn destroying evidence and public records is worth the risk when they abuse their police power," the filing states.
She accuses the defendants of engaging in the same behavior and allowing the public to engage in the same behavior at meetings for which she was arrested, but none of them challenged the sheriff, so it was overlooked.
"Defendants also admit that they removed one person from multiple meetings because he disrupted several meetings. Even though this man was a member of the public -- not a commissioner -- Defendants never charged him with disrupting the commissioners' meetings under R.C. 2917.12. Thus, Defendants let everyone disrupt their meetings time and time again, and they have never arrested or charged a single person until Commissioner Frenchko insulted the Sheriff's Department and refused Defendants' demands to publicly apologize," the filing states.
"Defendant Fuda may have summed it up best in the media when he made his own observation that 'others have acted inappropriately at those meetings and were never arrested.'" Therefore, Defendants, even according to their own statements, should not have had Commissioner Frenchko arrested as they have never previously arrested a single person for disrupting their meetings, including one person who was removed multiple times. No Defendant should enjoy immunity or summary judgment here. There is plenty of objective evidence that Defendants treated Commissioner Frenchko differently than another person because she was a political rival engaged in criticisms against the Sheriff's Department."
Frenchko includes excerpts from depositions given by Fuda, Cantalamessa and Monroe, as well as excerpts from video recordings she made on her cellphone to argue her point.