An Ohio cop has filed a bombshell lawsuit against the Portage County Sheriff's Office, accusing them of a severe abuse of authority. Officer Miranda L. Brothers, 29, from the Mantua Police Department, alleges she was falsely arrested, her five-year-old son was put into foster care, and private, explicit photos from her phone were taken and shared among the sheriff's staff.
A single mother, Brothers is now seeking more than $150,000 in punitive damages from the sheriff's office. Her lawsuit accuses the department of malicious prosecution, violating her constitutional rights, causing intentional emotional distress, and engaging in serious misconduct. She claims there is no evidence to support the allegations against her.
Misuse of Power and Authority
According to the legal filing, the ordeal began in late 2023 when detectives secretly launched an investigation into her parenting. The investigation was centered on unproven allegations that she had left her son alone with a registered sex offender.
Surveillance by two detectives on December 7, 2023, reportedly found no evidence of such contact, and a third detective's earlier findings confirmed that the accusations were "unfounded" and "inaccurate."
However, just weeks later, on January 1, 2024, sheriff's deputies pulled over Brothers in a traffic stop, seizing her phone, her child's tablet, and removing her son from her custody.
The next day, Brothers was charged with child endangerment, with authorities accusing her of allowing a sex offender to spend "extended periods of time alone" with her child.
In her lawsuit, Brothers details the troubling events that followed. A forensic examination of her devices found no evidence of criminal activity—a point that detectives confirmed during a hearing in April 2024.
"The testimony at the April 15, 2024 Motion Hearing verified that no detective had witnessed Juvenile A engage in unsupervised contact with a registered sex offender," the complaint mentions.
Despite the lack of evidence, prosecutors continued with the case, resulting in Brothers being suspended from her job and her son remaining in foster care for several months.
Circulating Her Explicit Photos
The most explosive allegations in Brothers' lawsuit concern the sheriff's office's alleged mishandling of her seized cellphone. She accuses a detective, referred to as "John Doe," of circulating explicit private photos of her to colleagues and possibly others outside the department.
"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 lawsuit mentions.
Brothers' legal team called the actions "so extreme and outrageous" that they "went beyond all possible bounds of decency."
Her attorney, Eric Fink, strongly condemned the behavior. In an interview with WOIO, he referred to the allegations as an unprecedented breach of trust.
"They went through [the phone], found no evidence of wrongdoing, and then shared private, explicit photos entirely unrelated to the investigation," he said.
When asked if the photos were explicit, Fink confirmed they were.
The charges against Brothers were ultimately dropped in July 2024, and she has since returned to her job. However, her attorney claims the experience has left deep emotional scars.
"We are still trying to understand why this investigation was even opened," In her complaint, Brothers details the emotional toll of the ordeal, including the humiliation and devastation of losing custody of her son and having her private images shared by those entrusted with upholding the law.
The case is set to go to court, though the Portage County Sheriff's Office has not yet commented on the allegations.
