CLEVELAND — Portage County Sheriff Bruce Zuchowski and three deputies have been sued by a pair of Ravenna residents alleging that they were arrested and incarcerated on felony drug charges despite testing results showing the men did not possess any controlled substances.
The lawsuit, filed on Aug. 29 by plaintiffs Zephiniah Robinson and Jack Metcalf, revolves around a 2023 traffic stop conducted by deputies Sean Bradley, Robert Paolucci and Anthony Zappone, who are named alongside Zuchowski as co-defendants.
In the suit, Robinson and Metcalf allege the sheriff's deputies created "false evidence" to charge the pair with trafficking in cocaine and possession of cocaine, resulting in the men being jailed for nearly two weeks, losing their jobs and being denied other employment opportunities due to their arrest records.
The lawsuit accuses the sheriff's office of violating the plaintiff's constitutional rights and blames Zuchowski for failing to train and supervise deputies "concerning proper police procedure and constitutional limitations relative to the searches and seizures, and cruel and unusual punishment." It also charges Zuchowski with failing to institute proper procedures to ensure the integrity of drug and evidence testing.
Zuchowski did not respond to a request for comment sent outside regular business hours.
The lawsuit was first reported by The Portager.
According to the lawsuit, on Aug. 29, 2023, Zappone pulled Robinson over in a 2018 Buick Encore owned by his sister for allegedly "failing to properly display his license plate and missing both side view mirrors." Metcalf was a passenger in the car.
While on the way to the scene and "without knowing any details about the vehicle and its occupants," the defendants allege Bradley told Zappone over radio that he believed one of the people in the car was a suspect who had an outstanding warrant for felony burglary.
According to portions of Zappone’s investigative report that are cited in the lawsuit, the false information about a felony suspect, coupled with "observing both occupants reaching around in the vehicle," Zappone decided to conduct the stop as a felony stop. Robinson and Metcalf were ordered out of the vehicle at gunpoint, the lawsuit states.
Bradley later arrived to the scene and confirmed that neither Robinson nor Metcalf were the burglary suspect the deputies had believed was involved, according to the lawsuit. After that, Bradley told Zappone that Bradley's K-9 found drugs in the car.
Bradley and Paolucci then searched the car for drugs and found a "large amount of white powder" behind the driver’s seat. According to the suit, Paolucci performed "several" tests on the powder on the scene, checking for the presence of meth or cocaine. The lawsuit states the tests did not find any evidence of the drugs and Paolucci threw the tests in a trash bag in his cruiser. However, Bradley wrote in his report, in two separate locations, that the white powdery substance tested positive for cocaine.
Despite both men denying possessing cocaine or any other illegal drugs, Robinson and Metcalf were arrested and charged with trafficking in cocaine and possession of cocaine, both first-degree felonies. Robinson's sister's Buick was also impounded and towed to the Portage County Sheriff's Office.
The deputies vacuumed the powder and sent it to the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, which tested the substance. On Oct. 29, 2023, the results of the test were issued, showing that the 65 grams of powder contained no controlled substance. According to The Portager's reporting, the substance was in fact baking soda.
The sheriff's office posted details of the arrest in a Sept. 9, 2023 post on its Facebook page, more than a month before the BCI would notify the office that the substance pictured in the post did not test positive for any narcotics.
"We will continue to give criminals like these a place to stay!" the Facebook post read, referring to Robinson and Metcalf.
After BCI's determination that the men had not possessed illegal drugs inside the car, Robinson’s and Metcalf’s charges were cleared by the Portage County Prosecutor's Office. Their cases were dismissed with prejudice, meaning the case could not be brought against the men again.
In their lawsuit, Robinson and Metcalf's lawyers argue that the men were falsely accused of crimes "solely in an effort to promote the Portage County Sheriff department [sic] image of aggressively fighting drug trafficking and crime" and that the sheriff's office actions "constitute malicious prosecution." Eddie Sipplen, the plaintiffs' attorney, declined to comment when reached via email Thursday.
Robinson and Metcalf are requesting a jury trial, seeking unspecified monetary damages and for Portage County to adopt a policy to ensure "future instances of the type of misconduct" they allege are prevented.
Zuchowski has been embroiled in controversy in recent weeks over Facebook posts encouraging his supporters to "write down the addresses" of residents displaying yard signs in support of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris. The comments prompted the Portage County NAACP to hold and emergency meeting and resulted in the county's board of elections voting to remove the sheriff's office from its duties providing security during early voting.
According to a post by Zuchowski's wife, Amanda Zuchowski, on Wednesday, one of the two accounts on which the sheriff posted the controversial message has been suspended by Facebook.