Staff photo / Ed Runyan Attorney Matt Miller Novak, left, of Cincinnati, Trumbull County Commissioner Niki Frenchko and Attorney David Betras held a news conference Monday afternoon at Betras’ law office in Canfield to discuss the federal lawsuit they filed against Trumbull County Sheriff Paul Monroe, Commissioner Mauro Cantalamessa, former county commissioner Frank Fuda and others.

WARREN — Trumbull County Commissioner Niki Frenchko and her attorneys made it official Monday: They filed a federal lawsuit against Sheriff Paul Monroe, county commissioner Mauro Cantalamessa, former county commissioner Frank Fuda and others over her July 7 arrest during a county commissioners meeting.

The suit also names as defendants the board of county commissioners, the county sheriff’s office and deputy sergeants Robert Ross and Harold Wix, who arrested Frenchko. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court and is assigned to Judge J. Philip Calabrese in Cleveland.

The suit alleges Frenchko’s arrest on fourth-degree misdemeanor disrupting a public meeting was a “ruthless false arrest intended to punish a political adversary for criticizing the county sheriff in violation of the First, Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.”

The charge was later dismissed by a visiting judge at the request of a special prosecutor.

The suit was filed by attorneys David Betras of Canfield and Matt Miller Novak of Cincinnati, who held a news conference at Betras’ offices in Canfield Monday.

The suit seeks monetary damages against the defendants. It also seeks a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to prevent the defendants from “continuing to destroy records and seizing (Frenchko’s) property unlawfully to interfere with her right to record meetings,” the document states.

A hearing on the TRO is set for 2 p.m. today.

Betras said the goal of the lawsuit is to “rein in the unconstitutional acts of the county commissioner and Paul Monroe, and it’s a message that you cannot jail your political opponent for exercising their free speech.”

Reading from prepared remarks at the news conference, Betras said, “Sheriff Monroe may have police power, but this is not a police state.”

The suit states that the matter began June 1 with Frenchko reading a letter at a commissioners meeting “from someone who held herself to as the mother of a previously incarcerated male at the Trumbull County jail.” The letter claimed the inmate did not receive proper medical care.

The next day, Monroe wrote a letter chastising Frenchko for reading the 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, the commissioners clerk read Monroe’s letter. The suit alleges that as soon as Frenchko started to respond to the letter, “defendants began texting one another. In fact, upon information and belief, the defendant deputies and the defendant commissioners were communicating with Sheriff Monroe,” the suit alleges.

Eventually, Commissioner Mauro Cantalamessa told her 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. Then she was escorted from the meeting and she was arrested.

Frenchko claimed the arrest was a “setup.”

The suit alleges that through their conduct that day, the defendants “battered Commissioner Frenchko, they humiliated her, they restrained her, they caused emotional suffering.”

The lawsuit not only alleges violations of Frenchko’s civil rights occurred that day, but it also argues that the charge filed against her was an unfair law.

“Essentially this statute provides the government with unbridled discretion to arrest anyone for any comment during a public meeting because it makes the government mad,” the suit states.

Attempts to reach the defendants were unsuccessful except for Fuda. When he was told about the allegations that he, Cantalaessa and Monroe were texting each other during the lead-up to the arrest, he said he rarely ever talked to Monroe.

“He did everything on his own,” Fuda said.

Fuda added that on that same day, he received a call before the meeting that his wife was going to need to be transported to the hospital.

“I just wanted to get that meeting over and get to the hospital. That’s what I did,” he said.

erunyan@vindy.com