Ohio Police Officer Files Sensational Lawsuit Against County Sheriff’s Office Alleging Deputies Shared X-Rated Pictures From Her Phone and Placed Son in Foster Care Without Evidence
Officer Brothers has sued the sherrif's department.
Jan. 7 2025, Published 12:30 p.m. ET
A female Ohio police officer has filed a lawsuit against some of her supposed-to-be colleagues at the sheriff's department, alleging they passed her private, explicit cell phone selfies among the deputies after what she calls a failed targeted sting operation.
The 29-year-old officer also had her young son taken from her and placed in foster care for months during the unwarranted investigation, RadarOnline.com has learned.
The Ohio police officer accused deputies of passing around her private photos.
Officer Miranda Brothers filed a lawsuit against the Portage County sheriff and the deputies who arrested her on child endangering charges, which were later dropped.
According to her lawsuit, the single-mother became the focus of a sting operation focusing on her parenting. Brothers was arrested after allegedly leaving her then five-year-old child in the care of a known sex offender.
But her attorney, Eric Fink, explained there's much more to the story, explaining she was meeting her son's babysitter at a local restaurant before leaving for her work. The owner of the restaurant was apparently the "known offender."
Fink told Shaker Heights CBS affiliate WOIO: "Her babysitter is an off-duty police dispatcher, background checked."
What she didn't know was that the sheriff’s department set up a couple of detectives who were photographing and looking to determine whether she left her child with the sex offender instead of the babysitter.
She also had her son temporarily taken from her.
Brothers was arrested a few weeks later, when deputies pulled her car over. Her young son was also in the car at the time of the stop.
Fink contested: "Several officers are involved in this sting operation, they take her off to the side of the road, tell her that she first of all has to hand over her cell phone, they tell her that they are taking her child away, and she is provided with very little explanation as to what’s going on."
The boy was taken from her and briefly placed in foster care, although he eventually was returned.
Brothers’ phone and her child’s tablet were also searched by investigators, but deputies could not find any evidence of any wrongdoing.
They did, however, find several explicit photos of Brothers, which according to Fink, they then "passed around themselves that had nothing to do with the case."
The lawsuit argues: "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 Portage County Sheriff's Office's conduct of observing, sharing and/or disseminating the private 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."
The document says Brothers suffered "psychological injury and mental anguish of a nature no reasonable person could be expected to endure."
Although a search of the phone found no evidence of criminal conduct, Brothers was suspended from her job and her son confined to foster care for months.
Brothers is suing for over $600,000.
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The charges against Brothers were dropped in July, and she has since returned to duty. But her attorney says the ordeal has left lasting scars.
"Although she was charged with leaving the child alone with a registered sex offender, each of the officers that testified stated that they never saw any contact with the registered sex offender."
The complaint seeks compensatory damages of $25,000 for each of the six claims in the lawsuit, and punitive damages of $500,000.
Fink said they just want to get to the bottom of how this happened: "We are trying to find out what it is or what caused them to initiate this operation against her in the first place, and why they treated her so differently from any other parent in a similar situation."
