Sheriff’s office arrests police officer ‘without evidence,’ takes her child, shares explicit photos from her phone: Lawsuit

An Ohio police officer has accused a sheriff’s office of arresting her “without evidence,” taking her young child away from her, and circulating “explicit” photos obtained from her cell phone, according to a new lawsuit.

Deputies with the Portage County Sheriff’s Office pulled over Miranda Brothers — an officer with the Mantua Police Department — on Jan. 1, 2024.

‘Despite knowing that the digital images were not relevant to any criminal charge, Detective John Doe shared and/or disseminated these digital images within the Portage County [Sheriff’s] Office and potentially further.’

WOIO-TV obtained police bodycam video of the traffic stop. Brothers is seen getting emotional when deputies remove her child from her vehicle.

Brothers is seen on bodycam video saying, “You’re gonna take custody of my kid? For what?”

The deputies accused Brothers of leaving her 5-year-old son alone with a registered sex offender. The deputies then took her child away from her, and Brothers was arrested.

The next day, sheriff’s office Detective Kenneth Romo charged Brothers with one count of endangering the welfare of a child.

Bodycam video shows a deputy using a search warrant to seize Brothers’ cell phone. Brothers allegedly gave officers her child’s tablet voluntarily.

Brothers was transported to the sheriff’s office, where detectives questioned her. Her child was temporarily placed in foster care.

The Portage County Sheriff’s Office accused Brothers of allowing a registered sex offender “to spend extended periods of time alone with the then-5-year-old child.”

Mantua Mayor Tammy Meyer immediately placed Brothers on administrative leave after her arrest.

Detectives said multiple people tipped them off about the alleged crime.

According to the complaint, “at least” two detectives with the Portage County Sheriff’s Office were deployed to observe Brothers and her child on Dec. 7, 2023, at a restaurant in Mantua — a village about 40 miles southeast of Cleveland.

The Portager reported that sheriff’s office Detective Mischell Weber oversaw the investigation but testified under oath that the complaints about child endangerment were “unfounded” and “not accurate.”

Sheriff’s office Detective Eric Noall later testified that the child never had “any unsupervised contact with a registered sex offender,” according to court documents.

The lawsuit claims that four detectives testified in December 2023, and none of them personally observed the child being supervised by a registered sex offender or that the child was in any danger.

On July 11, 2024, Portage County Municipal Court Judge Mark Fankhauser dismissed the case against Brothers.

Once the case was dropped, Brothers was reinstated at the Mantua Police Department.

Last week, Brothers filed her complaint against the Portage County Sheriff’s Office.

‘As a result of the Portage County Sheriff’s Office’s conduct, Plaintiff Brothers suffered serious mental anguish of a nature no reasonable person could be expected to endure.’

The lawsuit states, “The criminal complaint directly contradicts the sworn testimony of the members of the Portage County Sheriff’s Office who personally observed Juvenile A on December 7, 2023.”

The Portage County Sheriff’s Office reportedly performed a forensic investigation on Brothers’ cell phone, which copied her phone’s data to a computer database.

Sheriff’s office Detective Michael Hanna allegedly testified that there was no incriminating evidence regarding the child endangerment allegations on Brothers’ phone.

The suit also accuses an unnamed member of the sheriff’s office of looking at “private digital images” from Brothers’ phone and circulating them.

“Despite knowing that the digital images were not relevant to any criminal charge, Detective John Doe shared and/or disseminated these digital images within the Portage County [Sheriff’s] Office and potentially further,” the suit states. “The Portage County Sheriff’s Office’s conduct of observing, sharing and/or disseminating the private digital images of Plaintiff Brothers was so extreme and outrageous that it went beyond all possible bounds of decency and is intolerable in a civilized community.”

Brothers’ attorney, Eric Fink, confirmed to WOIO that the photos were “explicit in nature.”

Fink told the station, “She took her child to her babysitter who was at a restaurant in Mantua, she was scheduled to work in Mantua. Her babysitter is an off-duty police dispatcher, background checked. While she was there, the sheriff’s department set up a couple of detectives who were photographing and looking to determine apparently whether she left her child with a registered sex offender instead of the babysitter police dispatcher.”

The lawsuit names the defendants as the Portage County Board of Commissioners, the Portage County Sheriff’s Department, Portage County Sheriff Bruce Zuchowsky, Detective Kenneth Romo, and the unnamed detective.

The lawsuit states, “As a result of the Portage County Sheriff’s Office’s conduct, Plaintiff Brothers suffered serious mental anguish of a nature no reasonable person could be expected to endure.”

The lawsuit claims Brothers was subjected to malicious prosecution, violations of her Fourth, Fifth, Eighth, and 14th Amendment rights, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and tortious interference because she was suspended from her police officer job.

The suit is asking for at least $25,000 in compensatory damages and punitive damages of $500,000 per defendant.

The Portage County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the New York Post and WOIO.

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