Emily Moreno, who is embroiled in a contentious custody battle with her ex-husband, Rep. Max Miller, is suing the Ohio Republican and his attorney for releasing a nude photo of their 2-year-old daughter in documents Miller made public as he denied Moreno’s allegations of abuse.
Moreno filed the lawsuit on behalf of their daughter in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio on Wednesday. The complaint alleges that Miller and his attorney Aaron Minc “recklessly published and disclosed to the world a nude image of the child depicting her genitalia.”
Miller and Moreno, whose father is Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, have been engaged in a custody dispute over their daughter that has spilled into the public. Moreno has accused Miller of abusing her multiple times and of harming their daughter, which he denies. Miller has resisted calls from congressional colleagues to drop his re-election bid — including from his former father-in-law — and has insisted he has “nothing to hide.”
On Aug. 2, Miller made public a Dropbox folder of online files via his X account, along with a video statement in which he denied specific allegations of abuse against his ex-wife and daughter.
Moreno’s lawyers pointed out the next day that the folder contained a photo of the couple’s daughter in which “her genitals appear to be visible,” adding that it “could be considered Child Sexual Abuse Material.”
Minc subsequently took responsibility for the incident and apologized. He said that while he made several passes through the files to redact and delete private and sensitive information, he missed the last few pages of a document.
“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,” Minc said in a statement, later adding, “It was completely unintentional and a mistake.” According to Minc, the image remained online for about 23 hours.
Miller told CNN in an interview that the release of the image was “awful” but pushed backed on criticism. “I wouldn’t say that it’s shockingly reckless,” he said.
The complaint states that as of Aug. 10, Miller’s post on X with the link to the folder had been viewed more than 233,000 times. Moreno is seeking $150,000 in damages for each time the photo of their daughter was downloaded from the Dropbox account.
Despite Minc’s mea culpa, Moreno alleges that he and Miller have not provided information to her attorneys about how many times the image was accessed, nor have they answered questions about who might have accessed, viewed or downloaded it.
“This child is an entirely innocent victim who has become collateral damage to her father’s political ambition,” Subodh Chandra, Moreno’s attorney, said in a statement. “Any parent — and any lawyer — knows the grave danger of posting nude photos of a toddler on the public web for pedophiles and bad actors to download. They victimized an innocent child to score political points, and we intend to hold them fully accountable under federal and state law.”
Neither Miller nor Minc immediately responded to MS NOW’s requests for comment.
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