ASHLAND — The village of Mifflin’s beleaguered government situation just got weirder.
On June 7, Fred Craig — a village councilman who was arrested and jailed in January 2022 on a menacing by stalking charge for an incident that occurred in October 2021 — filed a civil suit with Ashland County Common Pleas Court against the village.
The suit comes a year after Craig’s menacing by stalking case was dismissed by Special Prosecutor Brian Gernert.
Craig, represented by William Moore of Columbus-based Moore & Yaklevich, names former councilwoman Joyce Amos, the village and township of Mifflin, and the village’s police department as defendants.
The suit is the latest move in a neighborly feud between Craig and Amos that involves nearly a decade of alleged vandalism, property damage and verbal abuse.
In October 2021, Amos filed a formal complaint on Craig. However, the complaint did not go anywhere legally until Dec. 15, 2021, when Mifflin Police Chief Jerry Snay formally charged Craig with menacing by stalking.
Dec. 15 happened to be the same night as a village special meeting in which council discussed and acted on several alley closings. Craig and Amos share Florida, a small alley that runs north-south on the western edge of the village.
Craig recorded the 40-minute meeting, which got heated.
The charge filed Dec. 15 wasn’t served to Craig until Jan. 5, 2022, when Snay appeared at Craig’s home to arrest him. He also issued a vague news release about the arrest without listing any names.
At the time, Craig said he was bewildered by the charge and subsequent jail time.
He also said he believed the incident was a conspiratorial plot to get him off council, which now serves as the basis of his civil lawsuit against the village.
The civil suit alleges Snay’s arresting of Craig was “illegally politically motivated” and claims the “false criminal charges carried a jail sentence and exposed (Craig) to the potential loss of freedom.”
It went on: “The acts of the Defendants were unconscionable and offended the bounds of decency. Defendants knew or should have known their acts would cause the emotional distress, mental anguish, embarrassment, anxiety, fear and humiliation to (Craig).”
Craig, a former village mayor, was elected to serve on council in November 2021. The first meeting, where he and other newly-elected officials would have been sworn in, was scheduled for a date in January 2022.
Craig ended up posting bail and agreed to conditions that included not harassing Amos, meaning he was allowed to attend the village council meetings.
But at the village’s first meeting, council suspended Amos for engaging in disorderly conduct “for the name-calling of residents of this village on a Facebook page,” said Philene Craig at the time.
Philene Craig happens to be Fred Craig’s wife; they were both elected to serve on council.
Following a mandatory hearing held for her suspension in March 2022, Amos was expelled indefinitely in a 3-2 vote. At the time, Amos said she didn’t expect the outcome and that the Craigs are not free of name calling.
“They’ve called me all sorts of names,” she has said.
Amos, Snay and Mayor Vickie Shultz were not immediately available to comment.
Dave Hunter, the village’s solicitor, said he has not been provided with a copy of the complaint but that it would be unlikely he’d represent the village because of the conflict of interest.
“So it might be up to the insurance carriers (of the village) to provide representation,” he said.
When reached by phone, Craig declined to talk specifics about the case.
Instead, he simply said: “They just can’t do what they’ve done to people.”
No court date has been set and court records do not show legal representation for the listed defendants.
