Hours after a judge issued a mutual restraining order barring both sides from disparaging or harassing each other, Ohio Rep. Max Miller sat down for his first published interview about the abuse accusations swirling around his divorce, and now his ex-wife's legal team wants him held in contempt for it.
Emily Moreno's lawyers filed court papers Friday arguing that Miller must explain why he should not face contempt sanctions and pay her legal fees. The filing came days after Miller gave a lengthy interview to the New York Post on Monday, then spoke with Spectrum News 1 and other outlets in quick succession.
The dispute cuts to a straightforward question: Can a sitting congressman defend his reputation in public while a court order tells him to keep quiet? Moreno's team says no, not the way Miller did it. Miller's camp says he had every right to push back against allegations he considers false and defamatory.
A judge issued a mutual restraining order Monday blocking both Miller and Moreno from disparaging or harassing each other. The order emerged from a custody battle over their 2-year-old daughter, the latest chapter in a marriage that began in 2022 and ended in divorce roughly two years later.
Miller did not wait long. The New York Post reported that Miller sat for a lengthy interview that same Monday, hours after the order was issued. It was his first published sit-down about the controversy. He then spoke with Spectrum News 1 and other media outlets.
The interview centered on accusations first reported by the Daily Mail that Miller dumped hot water on Moreno's back on June 9, 2024. Miller sued Moreno for defamation after those accusations surfaced. His team also shared audio with the Post that they described as a conversation between Miller and Moreno recorded weeks after the alleged incident.
In the audio Miller's team provided to the Post, Miller can be heard addressing the hot-water allegation directly.
Miller stated in the recording:
"First of all, the water incident, which I have the text messages from that we have, even following up after that, I never thought that, that hurt you, and you know that."
He continued:
"If you want to accuse me of abuse by showing photos and no video evidence of something that I wasn't even being abusive for, by all means, go ahead and do that."
Moreno's lawyers read the tape differently. They argued the audio actually showed Miller giving Moreno permission to make the accusations, a characterization Miller's side disputes.
Moreno's legal team did not hold back in Friday's court papers. Her lawyers acknowledged that Miller is not barred from speaking to reporters or defending himself in general terms. But they drew a sharp line at what they called his use of media to attack Moreno personally.
Moreno's lawyers wrote in the filing:
"To be clear, [Moreno] acknowledges that [Miller] is not restrained from talking to the media, nor is he restrained from defending himself. Those actions, by themselves, are not at issue."
The next passage carried the real charge:
"What [Moreno] does object to is that [Miller] uses the media to harass, disparage, and abuse Defendant in contravention of this Court's Restraining Orders, and does so [in] a very visible, very public manner. It must stop."
Alongside the contempt argument, Moreno's lawyers filed a motion to compel Miller to turn over the audio his team had shared with the Post. They argued the Post's story proved Miller had not complied with discovery requests, that he was willing to hand recordings to reporters but not to the opposing party in litigation.
That is a pointed accusation. If a litigant shares evidence with the press while withholding it from the other side in discovery, courts tend to take a dim view.
Chris Vlasto, Miller's representative, told the Post that the congressman was simply standing up for himself against claims he believes are fabricated.
Vlasto said:
"Congressman Miller is defending himself against false allegations that have damaged his reputation and continue to cause harm. He is not going to sit back while Emily Moreno and her attorney make claims he believes are untrue and defamatory."
On the restraining order question specifically, Vlasto pushed back hard:
"Any assertion that Congressman Miller violated a non-disparagement agreement is simply the characterization of Ms. Moreno's counsel, and he strongly disputes it. Congressman Miller will continue to defend himself and pursue the appropriate legal remedies."
Miller's camp, in short, frames this as a free-speech issue layered on top of a defamation dispute. Moreno's camp frames it as a man who walked out of a courtroom and immediately did the thing the court told him not to do.
The legal landscape around Miller and Moreno now involves multiple overlapping proceedings. Miller filed a defamation suit against Moreno after the Daily Mail report. Moreno's lawyers have now cited his media appearances as grounds to throw that suit out entirely, arguing he cannot claim reputational harm from her while simultaneously airing the dispute himself on a national stage.
The motion to compel adds another front. If the court orders Miller to produce the audio, it could reshape the evidentiary picture in the custody fight. And the contempt request, if granted, could carry financial penalties and put Miller on a short leash with the court going forward.
None of these motions have been ruled on yet. The judge who issued the restraining order has not weighed in publicly on the contempt accusation. The case numbers, court venue, and full text of the restraining order remain unclear from available filings.
Emily Moreno is the daughter of Sen. Bernie Moreno, the Ohio Republican. That connection adds political weight to a custody dispute that might otherwise stay buried in family court dockets. Two prominent Ohio Republicans, a congressman and a senator's daughter, locked in a public fight over abuse allegations, restraining orders, and leaked audio is the kind of spectacle that benefits no one in the party.
At the center of it sits a 2-year-old girl whose parents cannot agree on the facts of their own marriage, let alone her future.
Several questions hang over this case. What does the full audio recording contain beyond the excerpts Miller's team selected for the press? What specific discovery requests does Moreno's side say Miller failed to honor? And will the judge treat Miller's media tour as a technical violation, a serious breach, or something the restraining order never intended to cover?
The distinction matters. Restraining orders that bar "disparagement" can be read broadly or narrowly. A congressman publicly disputing abuse allegations against him is not the same thing as a private citizen sending threatening messages. Courts will have to decide where Miller's conduct falls on that spectrum.
Miller's team clearly believes the best defense is a public one. Moreno's team believes the court already told him to stop. Both sides filed papers. Now the judge decides.
When a court issues an order and a party responds by booking interviews the same afternoon, the question is not whether he had something to say. The question is whether he thought the rules applied to him.
