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A Warren woman who had been cleared in January of 2024 of charges filed against her after a miscarriage is now suing the city, the police who arrested her, Mercy Health and the doctor and nurses who she sought care from. 

In a lawsuit filed in federal court on January 10, Brittany Watts, who had previously been cleared of a charge of abuse of a corpse after her arrest in October of 2023, is suing the City of Warren, as well as St. Joseph Hospital, several of its doctors and Warren Police Department Detective Nick Carney.

The suit accuses the defendants of false arrest prosecution without probable cause, unconstitutional interrogation, due process violation, conspiracy, Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) violation, malicious prosecution, intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress, medical negligence, unauthorized disclosure of medical information and indemnification.

It was September of 2023 when Watts was about 21 weeks pregnant and experienced what the suit describes as "an expectant mother's worst nightmare."

The suit states that Watts went to St. Joseph Hospital and was diagnosed with a condition that endangered her pregnancy.

According to the suit, she did not receive any treatment or guidance for eight hours and eventually went home feeling "frustrated and abandoned" before returning the next day when her condition worsened.

The suit states that at this point, the doctors told Watts that her pregnancy was doomed and she was at risk of hemorrhaging, sepsis and death unless the fetus was removed.

According to the suit, the standard method of care for a person in Watts's condition are to either induce labor or dilation and evacuation (D&E). The suit goes on to say hospitals that do not offer D&E are required to inform patients of their options to have that procedure performed elsewhere.

The suit alleges that no one at the hospital informed Watts of any other facilities that offered the procedure or that D&E was even an option at all. According to the suit, this is an EMTALA violation.

According to the suit, Watts agreed to the induction of labor, but despite that, the labor induction process never began.

"[Hospital staff’s] actions cannot be explained by concern for the life of the fetus because the doctors, including Defendant [Parisa] Khavari, knew that there was almost no chance of the fetus surviving the induced labor," the suit reads.

According to the suit, Watts stayed in the hospital for 10 hours, but still never received any treatment causing her to eventually go home once more without care.

Just a few days later, Watts miscarried in her bathroom at home, laying on the floor bleeding for roughly an hour before attempting to clean up the room and plunging the toilet. The suit says Watts was unaware at this point that she had miscarried, as the fetus weighed about one pound and was obscured by blood. 

According to the suit, Watts never saw the fetus when she did this. The suit further alleges hospital staff never informed Watts about what the fetal remains would look like or how to properly dispose of them.

After this, the suit states Watts went back to the hospital once again for treatment, when a nurse, identified in the suit as Connie Moschell called the police on her instead.

"It's a shocking case," Julia Rickert, Watts' Attorney and Partner at Loevy and Loevy said. "She was in the hospital for several days following the miscarriage, a hospital stay that could've been avoided if she had gotten proper care when she was at the hospital pre-miscarriage," she said.

The suit alleges Moschell falsely told police that Watts gave birth at home, but did not want the baby, so she did not check to see if the baby was alive and came to the hospital without it, despite knowing from Watts's previous hospital visits that the fetus was not viable.

Although Defendant Moschell and her coconspirators, including Defendant Carney, a police detective, and Defendant [Jordan] Carrino, another nurse, knew Ms. Watts had committed no crime, they saw to it that she would face criminal charges for having an experience shared by hundreds of thousands of women every year," the suit reads.

The suit goes on to accuse Moschell and Detective Carney of knowingly creating false police reports and hospital notes and lying to Watts during an interrogation.

According to the suit, Watts was interrogated by Detective Carney while she was still in the hospital undergoing medical treatment. The suit states that Carney along with Moschell pretended to be on Watts's side, repeatedly telling her she was not in trouble and they were there to help her. The suit claims officers placed themselves between Watts and the door and told her she was free to leave if she wished, despite being medically unable to do so. 

The suit alleges that Carney and Moschell stepped out of the room during the interrogation to discuss their strategy including obtaining ultrasound pictures to employ during the interrogation.

According to the suit, when interrogation resumed, the two asked Watts where the fetus was, but when she explained that if they had not been scooped up and placed in a bucket, they must still be in the toilet, they did not accept her answer, instead suggesting she hid a live baby "in a cabinet."

"Ms.Watts was in a medical crisis, an emotional crisis and the people who should have been looking out for her, more than anyone else, the medical professionals, and police officers instead persecuted her," Rickert said.

Furthermore, the suit alleges that Carney included a false detail in the police report stating Watts said she had "taken the fetus out of the toilet and placed it in a black bucket," as well as omitted facts including that Watts never saw the fetus, that she believed it came out in bits and pieces and that she had taken no steps to harm the fetus.

This led to Watts getting arrested and charged with abuse of a corpse. According to the suit, there was no probable cause for this charge because in Ohio, a fetus does not have legal status until viability so a pre-viable deceased fetus does not qualify as a "corpse."

"In sum, Defendant Carney set out to present a false version of the facts to make it look like a crime had been committed: that Ms. Watts had given birth at home to a live baby and caused it to die," the suit reads.

However, according to the suit, the autopsy report revealed the fetus's cause of death to be “prolonged intrauterine fetal demise,” meaning the fetus had already died in utero.

The suit alleges that after Watts was arrested and her criminal case began, Carney and Moschell continued to misrepresent the facts during testimony including testifying that Watts wanted to deliver the baby on the toilet and that she may have thought it was still alive after birth.

It wasn't until January of 2024 when a Trumbull County grand jury declined to indict Watts and she was cleared of all charges. However, the suit states that doesn't take away from the emotional distress Watts felt and still feels as a result of the situation.

"Ms. Watts did nothing wrong is really what it comes down to, at all, certainly nothing illegal and that would've been clear to any person familiar with her medical records and who had actually spoken with her," Rickert said. "It is a medical fact that the only possible way give the fetus Brittany was carrying a chance at survival was to get it outside of her body as quickly as possible," she said.

"While Ms. Watts was relieved that the truth had prevailed, the closing of the criminal case did not erase the harm Defendants’ misconduct caused," the suit reads.

"Even though the criminal case has concluded, Ms. Watts has not recovered," the suit continues.

Watts is demanding compensatory damages including damages for mental and emotional distress. She is also demanding a trial by jury in this case.

Watt's case was brought to national attention before it was dismissed with civil rights and reproductive rights advocates demanding the charge against Watts be dismissed. 

Following the dismissal, Watts attended President Joe Biden's State of the Union Address in March of 2024.

21 News has reached out to Mercy Health, Warren mayor Doug Franklin and safety service director Eddie Colbert and are awaiting their response to the lawsuit. 

Mercy Health released a statement that reads:

“We remain steadfast in our mission and our commitment to the patients and communities we serve with compassion and integrity. Due to patient privacy, Mercy Health will not discuss these legal proceedings.”

Warren Detective Nick Carney declined to comment. 

You can read much more about Watt's case, its aftermath and the national attention it received in our related coverage below. 

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