YOUNGSTOWN — Another victim of a former Warren police officer convicted of sex charges has filed a $1 million federal lawsuit accusing the city and its police chief of enabling a years-long pattern of behavior that ignored his crimes.

The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio on Wednesday, alleges ex-officer Michael Edwards Jr. raped, sexually battered and extorted multiple women between 2019 and 2024 while on duty and in uniform.

Edwards himself is not named in the lawsuit, however.

Edwards was convicted in September 2024 on charges including rape, sexual battery and theft in office following a Trumbull County trial.

He is incarcerated at Chillicothe Correctional Institution, according to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.

The complaint accuses the city and Merkel of establishing a “custom,” through patterned practice, of disregarding Edwards’s actions by not investigating citizen complaints, not properly training offices and turning a blind eye.

The complaint states Edwards targeted sex workers, drug addicts and other vulnerable women.

“He took advantage of their vulnerability and threatened to arrest these women or leak sensitive information about them if they did not submit to his sexual advances,” the complaint states. “For instance, he said things such as ‘What are you going to do to keep me quiet,’ and ‘I’m a cop, you’re a junkie. No one will believe you.'”

The complaint states that, upon information and belief, Edwards victimized at least six women while acting as law enforcement.

Unbeknownst to the victim, she was among multiple victims of Edwards, and the widespread pattern and practice of sexually abusing women who had come in contact with Warren police officers, the complaint states.

The victim — homeless at the time and set up in a Maryland Street “flop house” — noticed Edwards sitting outside of the residence in a marked police vehicle.

The complaint states that Edwards entered the building around late 2019 in full police uniform, and, using his authority as an officer, directed the victim into a bedroom for a conversation, then sexually assaulted her.

“In the following months, through February 2020, Edwards would use his authority as a Warren police officer to gain access into the residence and sexually assault (the) Plaintiff two more times,” the complaint states. “(The) Plaintiff eventually left the residence. Despite this, Edwards used his authority and title as a City of Warren police officer to locate, stalk, extort and sexually assault (the) Plaintiff.”

The behavior continued for at least two years, according to the complaint.

The lawsuit invokes the Supreme Court’s Monell precedent as part of one count of the claims for relief, arguing the city maintained unconstitutional customs enabling officer misconduct.

A second count, supervisory liability against Merkel, alleges Merkel knew or reasonably knew of Edwards’s violent history of unreasonable and egregious sexual acts against Warren citizens, his acts against the victim — including the stalking and harassing — and his improper and unconstitutional use of authority as an officer.

“Despite his knowledge of Edwards’s misconduct, as stated above, Defendant Merkel took no action, failed to impose reasonable discipline, including recommending and achieving termination of employment, failed to follow chain of command, failed to document the instances of misconduct, and / or otherwise abandoned his supervisory duties,” the complaint states.