WESTERVILLE, Ohio (WCMH) – A central Ohio woman's lawsuit against the city of Westerville and members of its police department accuses officers of intimidation and harassment.
The lawsuit, filed by Natasha Preece last week in U.S. District Court, claims police departments in Westerville and Seneca, South Carolina, conspired against her after she expressed concern about one of her sons moving in with a relative who previously abused her.
Along with Westerville, the legal action names the city of Seneca, and law enforcement officers with both cities' police departments, as defendants.
The lawsuit states that Preece was sexually abused by a relative as a child, and that she has since generally avoided contact with that individual. The same relative and his spouse began showing a "disturbing amount of attention” to her two teenage sons in 2021, inviting them to travel and gifting them numerous items including iPhones, the filing says.
Two years later, the couple began pushing for one of Preece’s sons, a senior in high school, to move to South Carolina to live with them. In October 2023, her son then withdrew from his local high school and moved states to live with the couple, according to the lawsuit.
The legal filing says Preece's other son, who remained in Ohio with her, received a call the day after his brother’s move from the relative who tried to “convince him to manufacture false claims about his mother.” Preece then contacted West Virginia law enforcement to report the abuse she endured there as a child, and reported the circumstances surrounding her son’s move to the Westerville Police Department.
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The shift seemingly occurred immediately after Westerville police were contacted by a member of the Seneca Police Department, who is “familiar and friendly” with the relative, according to the lawsuit. The filing claims the Seneca officer and the couple actively conspired to silence Preece and prevent her from ensuring her son's safety.
Preece claims when she contacted the Seneca Police Department to request a wellness check on her son, she was told that the request would be documented as harassment. In November 2023, Preece learned her son was in Tennessee and called a local department there to conduct a wellness check.
A couple months later, in January 2024, the Seneca law enforcement official who was friends with the relative filed an arrest warrant for Preece for second-degree misdemeanor harassment. Preece said in her suit that the individual who filed the warrant knew the allegations within it were false, and that the warrant was intended to silence her.
Preece was arrested by Westerville police after they were made aware of the warrant by Seneca police, despite South Carolina officers knowing extradition was impossible on a misdemeanor charge, the filing claims.
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Preece was held in the Franklin County jail for three days before a hearing, where a judge freed her on her own recognizance, meaning she did not have to pay bail. At a second hearing in February 2024, a Franklin County judge dismissed the case against Preece, according to the lawsuit.
Over the past year, Preece alleges that Westerville law enforcement officers have regularly parked in front of her home, in a “calculated effort” to intimidate her into remaining silent about her “unlawful arrest.”
The lawsuit also states a Seneca police official has made comments about tracking Preece’s location. Conduct by both Westerville and Seneca officers were not related to any genuine law enforcement activity, and are an attempt to silence her about her past abuse as well as prevent her from having contact with her son, the filing says.
The City of Westerville said it cannot comment on pending litigation.
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