WARREN – Attorneys for a current and former Trumbull County commissioner and sheriff’s office employees being sued by Commissioner Niki Frenchko are asking a judge to skip the trial and find in their favor.

The defendants asked U.S. District Court Judge J. Philip Calabrese to grant summary judgment, which is a ruling based based on evidence without going to trial.

This 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’s attorneys also asked 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.”

Frenchko filed suit April 17 against Sheriff Paul Monroe, Commissioner Mauro Cantalamessa, former Commissioner Frank Fuda and Sheriff’s Deputy Sergeants Robert Ross and Harold Wix in connection to her July 7, 2022, arrest for disrupting a public meeting.

The 4th degree misdemeanor charge, filed after Frenchko was accused of repeatedly interrupting the commissioners meeting, was later dismissed.

In her lawsuit, Frenchko’s attorneys state 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.”

In Frenchko’s earlier filing, she described the arrest as a “setup.”

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