Inset: Miranda Brothers (WOIO). Background: The restaurant where deputies claimed she left her child unattended with a sex offender (WOIO).
In Ohio, a 29-year-old police officer is taking legal action against the local sheriff’s office for allegedly wrongly arresting her and placing her child in foster care. The officer claims she was accused of leaving her 5-year-old child unsupervised with a registered sex offender, even though there was no evidence to support this claim. Furthermore, she alleges that investigators from the sheriff’s office accessed explicit photos from her cellphone and shared them within the office.
The police officer, Miranda L. Brothers from Mantua, filed a lawsuit against the Portage County Sheriff’s Office seeking punitive damages exceeding $150,000. The lawsuit includes various claims such as malicious prosecution, violation of her constitutional rights (Fourth, Fifth, Eighth, and 14th Amendments), intentional infliction of emotional distress, and tortious interference.
In January 2024, Brothers was arrested and charged with endangering the welfare of a child. However, the case against her was later dismissed in July, prompting her to seek legal recourse for the ordeal she went through.
According to the complaint, at least two detectives on Dec. 7, 2023, were assigned to observe Brothers and her child in connection with the investigation into her parenting. The detectives were positioned outside of a restaurant in Mantua, which is about 30 miles southeast of Cleveland. Both detectives later testified that the child never had “any unsupervised contact with a registered sex offender,” per the complaint.
Prior to the Dec. 7, operation, a third detective allegedly “investigated” the allegations against Brother and testified under oath that they were “unfounded” and “not accurate.”
“Without evidence” of a crime or her child being in danger, deputies on Jan. 1, 2024, conducted a traffic stop on Brothers where they removed her child from her care and seized her phone and her child’s tablet, the suit claims. Criminal charges filed the following day alleged that Brothers allowed a sex offender “to spend extended periods of time alone” with her child. She was immediately suspended from the police department pending an investigation.
“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 complaint states.
Brothers claims that a forensic search of her phone and the child’s tablet turned up no evidence of a crime, which detectives testified to during a motion hearing in April.
“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 says. “Despite the testimony at the April 15, 2024 Motion Hearing, the State continued to pursue criminal charges against Plaintiff Brothers.”
Brothers further claims that an unknown sheriff’s detective sent around explicit photographs of herself she had on her phone which were entirely unrelated to the case.
“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 says. “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.”
In an interview with Shaker Heights CBS affiliate WOIO, Brothers’ attorney, Eric Fink, said they were still trying to figure out why the sheriff’s office even opened an investigation into Brothers. He also provided more details about the circumstances leading to her arrest.
“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,” Fink told the station. “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.”
He also spoke about the private photos that were allegedly disseminated.
“They were explicit in nature?” the reported asked.
“Yes,” Fink responded.
Brothers returned to full-time duty after the charges against her were dropped.
The Portage County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Law&Crime.
