CINCINNATI — "Here in America, we do not arrest our political opponents," said U.S. District Judge Phillip Calabrese in a decision that found members of an Ohio sheriff's office and board of commissioners liable for free speech violations.
Cincinnati civil rights attorney Matt Novak had argued that is exactly what happened when two Trumbull County sheriff's deputies placed the lone Republican member of the county's board of commissioners, Niki Frenchko, under arrest for "disrupting" the meeting voters had elected her to conduct in July 2022.
"I didn't think it was real," the commissioner said of the encounter she livestreamed on Facebook. "If you saw the video, I did a double take."
Frenchko was arrested after commissioners attempted to move a meeting along instead of allowing Frenchko to continue a minutes-long speech criticizing the sheriff.
Court records identified Commissioner Mauro Cantalamessa as the person who tried to end Frenchko's speech.
"You're talking about the chief law enforcement officer of Trumbull County. It's unacceptable," Cantalamessa can be heard saying on the recording.
Novak said he had no issue taking up a case that required a more than four-hour drive to the Cleveland area.
The court ruled an Ohio law making disruption of a public meeting a misdemeanor didn't give public officials the right to criminalize other's criticism of other public officials.
"The sheriff should have known better, his deputies should have known better, her fellow commissioners should have known better," Novak said.
Frenchko believed the ruling sent a message to government officials that stifling speech, no matter which party is being targeted, wouldn't be acceptable.
"That level of intimidation is intended to send a message to everyone to watch what they say," she said.
While the judge ruled members of the sheriff's office and commission were liable, Novak said they would continue to seek damages in the case as the court had yet to set an amount to be awarded.
"The reality is, if the government didn't have to pay anything, there were no financial consequences for their actions, what's to stop them from doing it all over again — constantly, constantly, constantly," he said.
WCPO reached out to the sheriff's office and county commission for comment, but hasn't received a response.
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