It’s no secret that since Niki Frenchko took over as Trumbull County commissioner in January 2021 the board of commissioners’ meetings are often heated and hostile.

Frenchko was not interested in making friends and she’s met with great success.

While some commissioner meetings have gotten completely out of control, none compares to what happened July 7, 2022.

Two sheriff deputies arrested Frenchko that day on a charge of disrupting her own public meeting.

Frenchko proceeded to file a civil lawsuit against the county, Commissioners Mauro Cantalamessa and Frank Fuda — who has since retired — as well as Sheriff Paul Monroe, and the two deputies who arrested her: Sgts. Robert Ross and Harold Wix. Frenchko was elected as a Republican. The three other elected officials are Democrats, though Fuda crossed party lines to support Frenchko.

An 81-page ruling Tuesday by U.S. District Court Judge J. Philip Calabrese opens with this: “Here in America, we do not arrest our political opponents. This case tests that longstanding norm as well as our Constitution’s robust protections for free speech that allow us to criticize our representatives and public officials.”

It continued: “As a public official, (Frenchko) used her position to needle the incumbents and, in her view, hold them accountable for their decisions. For their part, they viewed her as ignorant of the basic workings of county government and a nuisance, to put it mildly. As her colleagues became more and more frustrated and impatient with her, their personal and political disagreements grew increasingly heated.”

While Calabrese declined to rule on a number of issues he wrote were appropriate for a state court and ruled for the defendants on other counts, he granted Frenchko summary judgment that her arrest — the criminal charge was later dismissed — violated her 1st Amendment right and that it lacked probable cause violating her 4th Amendment right.

Calabrese also refused to grant qualified immunity to the defendants sued if punitive damages are awarded. That means if they are held responsible, they’ll have to pay damages and legal fees to Frenchko out of their pockets.

Calabrese wrote: “Immunity from liability in this case rises and falls with the jury’s findings. A jury may find that the defendants orchestrated the commissioner’s arrest before the meeting, in which case their conduct was conspiratorial and in bad faith, or the jury could find that the sergeants arrested Commissioner Frenchko on their own without a prior plan. Put more formally, a determination of statutory immunity involves a mixed question of law and fact and, on the record of this case, turns on disputed facts that a jury must decide.”

David Betras, a Frenchko attorney, said there is consideration to filing a state lawsuit.

While Calabrese declined to rule on a count of destruction of public records, he pointed out that several defendants, including Monroe, defied various court orders to not delete text messages stemming from the “false arrest” of Frenchko.

The judge also didn’t rule on Frenchko’s claim of civil conspiracy, but basically said one existed.

Regarding Monroe and Fuda, Calabrese wrote: “A jury could find that the two hatched a plan to arrest Commissioner Frenchko, then enlisted the other individual defendants.”

He added: “Text messages between Commissioner Cantalamessa and others, including other public officials, during the meeting lend support to this view and would allow a jury to find that a conspiracy existed and that Commissioner Cantalamessa participated in it. A jury could find that the sheriff’s deputies did not routinely provide security at commissioner meetings and that Sgt. Wix, who never had previously provided security at one, did so as part of plan to carry out the arrest.”

The judge added that Monroe texting a reporter with statements about the arrest about 30 minutes after it occurred, even though he wasn’t present, could lead a jury to find “that this fact evidences his participation in a scheme. Of course, a jury might not find a conspiracy based on these facts. At this stage of the proceedings, however, the record would support such a finding and a jury is entitled to decide the issue.”