Rep. Max Miller (R-OH) on Wednesday was hit with a lawsuit by his ex-wife over a photo of their toddler that was published online.
The lawsuit is the latest challenge Miller’s reelection campaign has faced from his ex, Emily Moreno, over allegations that he abused her and their 2-year-old daughter. Miller has rigorously denied domestic abuse claims, saying his former partner, who is the daughter of Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH), suffers from “significant” mental health problems.
The saga continued this week over a nude photo of their young daughter that was part of hundreds of pages of files Miller and his legal team shared to social media as a record of their defense against Moreno’s claims. Miller has apologized for the release, saying it was an inadvertent upload and was his attorney’s mistake. However, Moreno said in a federal civil-rights lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio that her ex-husband “recklessly and intentionally” authorized its release as part of the trove of files. She also said Miller lied when he said the photo did not depict their daughter’s genitalia.
Moreno is seeking liquidated damages of $150,000 per image disclosure and transfer, arguing that Miller is liable for Ohio state-law torts of wrongful invasion of privacy, negligence, and civil conspiracy.
“Apparently, without instructions to remove the intimate image, or even checking, Miller distributed the link to the folder publicly,” the lawsuit reads. “Intent on publicly trashing his ex-wife, he disregarded his daughter and recklessly failed to review the folder he shared with her intimate image, before sharing it with the world. He just didn’t care, as long as he could try to convince people that the sheer volume of material in the folder should cause them to doubt the many abuse allegations, from many quarters, against him.”
As concerns grow that the domestic abuse allegations could derail Republican hopes of keeping his seat red come November, Miller has sought to push back on all allegations of impropriety brought against him, professing his innocence, and even calling for a House Ethics Committee investigation into himself, saying he has “absolutely nothing to hide.”
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“My attorney took full responsibility,” the congressman said last week, speaking to the unredacted photo of the couple’s child that was posted to social media. “I believe that it’s awful. There was never any intent to do that.”
Miller filed for divorce in August 2024. The separation was finalized in December 2025, shortly before his personal life erupted into a series of accusations from his ex-wife, threatening to plunge his campaign into ruin.