The U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments from attorneys in an appeal to a court ruling that deemed the arrest of a former Trumbull County Commissioner unlawful.

The case stems from a court ruling that determined that former commissioner Niki Frenchko's arrest during a Trumbull County Commissioners meeting in July of 2022 was unlawful.

The arrest happened after a conflict between Frenchko and then-Trumbull County Sheriff Paul Monroe for reading a letter from the mother of an inmate in the Trumbull County Jail saying her son did not receive proper care while in jail on the record during a meeting.

The two former commissioners — Mauro Cantalamessa and Frank Fuda — and former sheriff alleged that Frenchko interrupted former clerk Paula Vivoda-Klotz while she was reading a letter from Monroe accusing her of dishonesty and demanding an apology.

In January of 2024, it was ruled that Frenchko's First Amendment rights and Fourth Amendment rights were violated. However, an appeal to this ruling was filed in September of 2024.

Attorney Daniel Downey argued on behalf of former Trumbull County sheriff Monroe and former Commissioners Fuda and Cantalamessa, and Matt Miller-Novak argued on behalf of former commissioner Niki Frenchko in the case.

Downey was up first and argued that the ruling should either be overturned or sent to a jury arguing that the arrest was not because of Frenchko's speech, but because she allegedly disrupted a public meeting.

Judges questioned Downey noting that while there is a statute against disrupting public meetings, others have interrupted meetings in the past and were not arrested.

While Downey agreed with this, he said this particular case was "outrageous" and "beyond" what was seen at other meetings alleging that Frenchko interrupted Vivoda-Klotz several times as she tried to read the letter.

However, Miller-Novak later brought up a time at another meeting when an employee was speaking and Fuda had allegedly interrupted him 10 times as he was trying to speak and received no consequence for that.

"[Cantalamessa and Fuda] engaged in the same conduct as miss Frenchko day in and day out because they're political friends as opposed to a political opponent," Miller-Novak said.

Also mentioned during this hearing were alleged text messages between commissioners and sheriff's deputies allegedly conspiring to arrest Frenchko.

The original ruling alleged that Cantalamessa and a department head communicated via text messages or phone calls to plan Frenchko's arrest, with one of these messages allegedly saying, "You can have her removed for being disruptive in a public meeting."

Downey argued that there is no evidence of text messages planning the arrest, calling them a "red herring."

However, Miller-Novak said the reason why there was no evidence of these messages was that they were deleted with Miller-Novak noting that one of the deputies was "rigorously texting" during the meeting.

"The text messages that they destroyed were actually sent. We know that from deposition," Miller-Novak said.

However, Downey argued on behalf of an attorney for the two deputies involved that the deputies were not aware of preserving text messages.

"I think there's testimony in the case that their phones, they simply drop off after a matter of a year and they had both gotten new phones not knowing that this would be an issue going forward," Downey said.

Finally, the court discussed allegations of a thumbs-up gesture being made to Cantalamessa right before Frenchko was arrested.

Downey argued that there was no evidence that this meant anything to commissioners.

No ruling has been made on the appeal at this time.

21 News reached out to Frenchko for comment and we received the following statement:

"Judge Calabrese's ruling was correct when he indicated that you can't separate conduct from speech. It was a retaliatory arrest for having a different point of view for medical treatment being denied, which creates a liability for the county due to inmate deaths.

Every meeting was disruptive, but I'm the only person in the history of Trumbull County to ever be arrested for interrupting. It was purely politically driven - it's evident."

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