Emily Moreno, the ex-wife of Rep. Max Miller, has filed a lawsuit accusing the Ohio Republican of recklessly publishing a nude photo of their toddler daughter on the internet, a claim that adds new legal trouble to a congressman already facing calls to resign.
Moreno filed the civil suit on Wednesday, alleging Miller uploaded the image as part of a Dropbox folder he posted publicly on his social media account. The folder, assembled to push back against domestic abuse allegations Moreno has leveled against him, contained the sensitive photo of their two-year-old, Fox News Digital reported. The lawsuit claims the folder's contents were viewed more than 400,000 times.
Miller has denied the abuse allegations and refused to withdraw from his re-election bid in Ohio's 7th Congressional District. His lawyer, Aaron Minc, took sole responsibility for what ended up in the folder, but the lawsuit targets Miller, not Minc, and accuses the congressman of reckless conduct that exposed a child to a global audience.
Minc issued a statement claiming the release of the photo was "completely unintentional" and that he was the only person who handled the folder's contents. He drew a sharp line between himself and his client:
"I am solely responsible for what happened. 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."
That statement may help Miller in a courtroom, but it does nothing to answer the central question the lawsuit raises: why a sitting congressman posted a publicly accessible link to a folder he had not personally reviewed, one that contained a nude image of his own daughter.
The lawsuit's language leaves no room for ambiguity about the stakes. The filing states that Miller "recklessly published and disclosed to the world a nude image" of the child, and argues that any parent should understand the danger of putting such material on the open internet.
"Miller's recklessness is underscored by the fact that any parent knows, in this era and world filled with pedophiles, creeps, and AI-generated image alteration and video generation, not to put nude pictures of their child, or any child, on the public internet."
Four hundred thousand views. That is how many times the Dropbox folder was accessed, according to the complaint. Whether the image itself was opened by every viewer is unclear, but the exposure window was enormous.
The nude-image lawsuit lands on top of an already volatile custody dispute. Moreno has accused Miller of throwing boiling water at her, holding a gun to her head, and possibly breaking their daughter's collarbone. Miller has fully denied every one of those allegations and posted a livestream to social media rejecting the claims of domestic and child abuse.
Investigations referenced in Fox News Digital's coverage found no evidence Miller harmed his daughter, though the specific agencies or bodies that conducted those reviews are not identified. The domestic abuse allegations remain unresolved in any formal criminal proceeding described in current reporting.
Moreno is the daughter of Sen. Bernie Moreno, the Ohio Republican who had previously avoided publicly wading into the dispute between his daughter and his former son-in-law. That changed Sunday, when the senator issued a public statement calling on Miller to resign from Congress. Sen. Moreno accused Miller of increasingly "erratic and dangerous behavior" and said he should not serve in the House of Representatives. The statement came after Miller's livestream denial of the abuse allegations.
A fellow Republican senator calling for a sitting House member's resignation is not routine. It signals that pressure from within the party has reached a level that can no longer be managed quietly through back channels or family diplomacy.
Miller's refusal to step aside carried a hard deadline. An election filing cutoff passed on Saturday, effectively locking him in as the Republican nominee for Ohio's 7th Congressional District. That means Ohio Republicans ran out of time to replace him on the ballot, regardless of what the party leadership may have preferred.
The timing is worth noting. Sen. Moreno's public call for resignation came on Sunday, one day after the deadline passed. Whether the senator waited deliberately or simply reached a breaking point is unknown, but the practical effect is the same: the demand arrived after the window to act on it had closed.
Miller now faces voters in a general election while defending against a civil lawsuit over a nude image of his toddler, fighting domestic abuse allegations he denies, and managing a public rupture with a sitting senator from his own party and state. Even before this lawsuit, the political outlook for his campaign had drawn skepticism from figures within Republican circles.
The lawsuit does not specify what damages or relief Moreno is seeking, and the court where it was filed has not been publicly identified in current reporting. The specific legal causes of action, whether the suit invokes privacy statutes, child-protection laws, or other claims, are also not detailed.
The cascade of allegations has produced real-world disruptions beyond the courtroom. Before the ballot deadline, Ohio Republicans canceled a Miller campaign rally over reported threats, a sign that the controversy had moved past political embarrassment into security concerns.
Miller, a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, attended a hearing on Treasury Department priorities as recently as June 4, 2026, according to a photo caption in Fox News Digital's coverage. He has shown no public indication he intends to resign or scale back his congressional duties.
What remains is a mess no one in the Ohio GOP asked for: a nominee they cannot replace, a lawsuit they cannot spin, and a family dispute that has spilled from private custody proceedings into federal politics. Miller's lawyer says the photo was an accident. The lawsuit says it was recklessness. More than 400,000 viewers saw the folder either way.
When a congressman's own defense strategy ends up exposing his toddler to the world, the question stops being about politics and starts being about judgment, the kind no election deadline can fix.
