An Ohio police officer accused the sheriff's office of wrongly taking her child from her and then releasing “private” explicit photos of her from her cell phone after she was charged with a felony that was later dismissed, according to a stunning lawsuit. Last week.
Mantua Village Police Officer Miranda Brothers, a single mother, filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the Portage County Sheriff's Office a year after her life was turned upside down in what she alleged was a stunning abuse of power.
Brothers' trouble began on Jan. 1, 2024, when police investigators stopped her and removed her five-year-old child from her car, accusing the mother of leaving the child alone with a registered sex offender, according to the lawsuit. .
“You're going to have custody of my child. 'Why?'” she said that day, according to body camera footage obtained by WOIO.
The child was placed in foster care and Brothers was charged with child endangerment. The complaint reportedly alleges that Brothers allowed the sex offender to spend “extended periods of time alone” with her son.
But the lawsuit claims the allegations were baseless, and the sheriff's office had no evidence to charge her with a crime.
“Although she was charged with leaving a child alone with a registered sex offender, all of the officers who testified stated that they did not see any contact with a registered sex offender,” her attorney, Eric Fink, told WOIO, who also posted the legal documents online. .
The charge was reportedly dropped over the summer. The station reported that the brothers were initially suspended during the legal turmoil, but returned to work after the case was dropped.
“We're trying to figure out why or why they did this against her in the first place, and why they treated her differently than any other parent in a similar situation,” Fink added.
Mantua is a village of about 1,000 people in Portage County.
As part of the investigation, the Sheriff's Office confiscated her phone, and while an unnamed investigator combed through its contents, he found “private digital photos” that were then shared within the department and “potentially more,” according to the legal action.
The lawsuit describes the alleged behavior as “so extreme and outrageous that it crossed all possible bounds of decency and cannot be tolerated in a civilized society.”
Fink said the photos were explicit when asked by the station.
“Law enforcement looked into it, and they were unable to find any evidence of wrongdoing on her cell phone or her child’s tablet,” Fink told the station.
“But they found many photos that they passed around that had nothing to do with the case.”
Brothers is seeking hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages, including malicious prosecution and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
The Post requested comment from the Sheriff's Office.
