Trumbull County commissioners and Sheriff Paul Monroe have been ordered to provide phone records to United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio in connection to a lawsuit filed by Trumbull County Commissioner Niki Frenchko.

She has filed action naming Commissioners Mauro Cantala-messa, Monroe, former commissioner Frank Fuda, as well as sheriff sergeant deputies Harold Wix and Robert Ross. The case is assigned to U.S. Judge J. Philip Calabrese in Cleveland.

A hearing took place last week to establish a schedule for future court deadlines and hearings.

Frenchko is suing in connection to what she describes as a false arrest that took place during a July 2022 board of commissioners meeting. Frenchko, at the time, was arrested on a fourth-degree misdemeanor of disrupting a public meeting.

In a separate matter on March 9 of this year, Frenchko claims Monroe assaulted her when he took from her a phone that she uses to record meetings, in order to intimidate her and deprive her of the right to video record in an open meeting.

All phone records are to be turned over to the court by July 25, according to the court records. A hearing is scheduled to take place in Calabrese’s court in Cleveland.

The court has ordered Frenchko and all of the defendants to make any additional pleadings by July 31.

In the 2022 incident, Frenchko claims she was arrested by sheriff deputies within days after she read a letter from the mother of a jail inmate, which stated the jail refused to provide a prisoner with the proper medical treatment.

Monroe later demanded an apology from Frenchko for besmirching the correction officers working in the county jail. Frenchko refused and continued to criticize the jail operation.

Two deputies who were at the July meeting asked Frenchko to get up from her seat so she could be taken out, handcuffed and arrested.

Monroe later said the deputies were at the meeting in response to a request from the other commissioners.

Frenchko claims in the lawsuit that actions of the deputies, the sheriff and the two other commissioners were planned and coordinated.

They were designed to lead to her arrest, she stated.

The misdemeanor charges against Frenchko were dismissed in August.

During the March meeting this year at the Trumbull County Planning Commission offices, Frenchko claims Monroe grabbed her cell phone to prevent her from recording his statements.

In the lawsuit, Frenchko claims all of the defendants sought to deny Frenchko of her of free speech, due process, her 14th Amendment right of due process, compelled an undue arrest, sought undue prosecution, committed battery, seizure of personal property and sought to retaliate against her.

The court wants to complete depositions by year’s end.