2 Ravenna men sue Portage County sheriff over false drug charges

CLEVELAND – Portage County Sheriff Bruce Zuchowski and three of his deputies have been sued by two Ravenna residents who claim they were arrested and jailed on drug charges even though test results showed the men did not possess any controlled substances.

The lawsuit, filed Aug. 29 by plaintiffs Zephiniah Robinson and Jack Metcalf, centers on a 2023 traffic stop conducted by Officers Sean Bradley, Robert Paolucci and Anthony Zappone, who are named as co-defendants alongside Zuchowski.

In the lawsuit, Robinson and Metcalf claim that deputies fabricated “false evidence” to charge the two with cocaine trafficking and cocaine possession. As a result, the men spent nearly two weeks in jail, lost their jobs and were denied other employment opportunities because of their criminal records.

The lawsuit accuses the sheriff's office of violating the plaintiff's constitutional rights and accuses Zuchowski of failing to train and supervise officers “regarding proper police procedures and constitutional limitations on searches and seizures and cruel and unusual punishment.” It also accuses Zuchowski of failing to implement proper procedures to ensure the integrity of drug and evidence testing.

Zuchowski did not respond to a request for comment sent outside of business hours.

The lawsuit was first reported by The Portager.

According to the lawsuit, on August 29, 2023, Zappone stopped Robinson in a 2018 Buick Encore owned by his sister for allegedly “failing to properly display his license plate and having both side mirrors installed.” Metcalf was a passenger in the car.

On the way to the crime scene and “without knowing any details about the vehicle or its occupants,” according to the defendants, Bradley radioed Zappone that he believed one of the car's occupants was a suspect with an outstanding warrant for his arrest for burglary.

According to portions of Zappone's investigative report cited in the lawsuit, based on the false information about a suspect combined with “observing both occupants reaching around in the vehicle,” Zappone decided to conduct the stop as a felony. Robinson and Metcalf were ordered to exit the vehicle at gunpoint, the lawsuit says.

Bradley later arrived at the scene and confirmed that neither Robinson nor Metcalf were the burglary suspects officers believed were involved, the lawsuit states. Afterward, Bradley told Zappone that Bradley's sniffer dog had 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 lawsuit, Paolucci ran “multiple” tests on the powder at the scene to test it for meth or cocaine. The lawsuit says the tests showed no evidence of the drugs and Paolucci threw the test samples in a trash bag in his patrol car. However, Bradley wrote in his report at two different locations that the white powder-like substance tested positive for cocaine.

Although both men denied possession of cocaine or other illegal drugs, Robinson and Metcalf were arrested and charged with cocaine trafficking and cocaine possession, both first-degree felonies. Robinson's sister's Buick was also seized and towed to the Portage County Sheriff's Office.

Officials vacuumed up the powder and sent it to the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, which tested the substance. On October 29, 2023, test results were released, showing that the 65 grams of powder did not contain any controlled substance.

The sheriff's office released details of the arrest in a September 9, 2023, post on its Facebook page, more than a month before the BCI informed the office that the substance pictured in the post did not test positive for narcotics.

“We will continue to house criminals like these!” the Facebook post said, referring to Robinson and Metcalf.

After BCI determined that the men did not have any illegal drugs in the car, charges against Robinson and Metcalf were dropped by the Portage County District Attorney's Office. Their cases were dismissed, meaning the case could not be re-filed against the men.

In their lawsuit, attorneys for Robinson and Metcalf argue that the men were falsely accused of the crimes “solely in an effort to promote the Portage County Sheriff’s Department [sic] image of aggressively fighting drug trafficking and crime” and that the sheriff's office's actions “constitute malicious law enforcement.” Eddie Sipplen, listed in the lawsuit as the plaintiffs' attorney, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Robinson and Metcalf are seeking a jury trial and unspecified damages, as well as demanding that Portage County adopt a policy to prevent “future instances of the type of misconduct” they allege.

Zuchowski has been embroiled in controversy in recent weeks for urging his followers on Facebook to “write down the addresses” of residents who had put up signs in support of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris. The comments prompted the Portage County NAACP to hold an emergency meeting and led to the county's Board of Elections voting to relieve the sheriff's office of its duties to provide 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 blocked by Facebook.