Emily Moreno, the ex-wife of Rep. Max Miller, filed a federal lawsuit against the congressman and his attorney accusing them of “recklessly” publishing a nude photo of Miller and Moreno’s daughter.
On Aug. 2, Miller — an Ohio Republican who Moreno has accused of domestic abuse — released the photo in question in a trove of digital files to defend himself amid the pair’s ongoing and escalating dispute. The picture includes their 2-year-old without her shirt on, according to the filing — a photo Moreno says constitutes child sexual abuse material, or CSAM, under federal law. Miller’s attorney, Aaron Minc, initially took responsibility for releasing the image before it was removed from the Dropbox folder.
“Faced with a mostly self-inflicted dumpster fire of public attention to his reputation for abusive behavior, Miller so desperately wanted to salvage his political job, that he recklessly and intentionally provided Minc a trove of documents and photos, indifferent about what they contained or how they were used,” the suit — which Moreno filed on behalf of their daughter — reads.
Neither Miller nor Minc responded to NOTUS’ request for comment on the lawsuit. Miller is currently engaged in other legal battles related to allegations of domestic violence from Moreno and his ex-girlfriend Stephanie Grisham.
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The legal criteria for an image to be considered CSAM include a visual depiction of sexually explicit conduct involving someone less than 18 years old.
In emails exchanged with Moreno’s legal team after the incident, Minc called the accusations “outrageous and false” because of the picture’s “innocent” nature.
“Please explain to me, right now, what knowledge you have and relied on when you leaked that letter to the press that the photos attached to that exhibit ‘could be considered’ CSAM,” Minc wrote in an Aug. 4 email to Moreno’s legal team. “Keep in mind, this photo was taken by your own client and shared over a court-sanctioned communications platform.”
“We are not going to debate with you whether the image ‘could be considered’ CSAM. Our view is that it could,” Subodh Chandra, Moreno’s legal counsel, responded less than an hour later. He added that if Miller’s team now thinks publicly sharing an image that appears to include “genitalia is just fine, then that would be most unfortunate.”
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, says Miller and his lawyer violated federal and state law by posting the photo. Moreno, on behalf of her child, is seeking compensatory damages for “pain and suffering” as well as “emotional distress.”
The lawsuit demands the court award $150,000 in damages for “every time someone accessed, transferred, distributed, published, or downloaded the image” of their daughter. Miller’s social media posts linking to the public file folder generated more than 400,000 total views, according to the filing.
“I am solely responsible for what happened,” Minc said in a statement to Politico on Aug. 4. “I was the only person responsible for assembling, creating, reviewing, adding, deleting, redacting, or making any changes to the information and files that were in this folder.”
The two-term congressman will remain on the ballot ahead of the November midterms despite calls from several high-profile Republicans — including his former father-in-law, Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) — to drop out of the race.
Miller has said he plans to lend his campaign $1 million ahead the general election, where he is set to face Democrat Brian Poindexter.
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