The ex-wife of Republican Rep. Max Miller asked a court Thursday to issue a restraining order blocking the two-term Ohio congressman from contacting her lawyer, as her allegations that he assaulted her — which Miller denies — continue to plague his contentious reelection campaign.
Miller pledged on Sunday to stay in the race as he vehemently denied the recent allegations that have swirled against him.
“I’m not getting out of this race, and I’m winning in November,” Miller said.
In court filings, ex-wife Emily Moreno alleged that Miller has repeatedly had physical and verbal altercations with her attorney, Andrew Zashin, after recent court hearings in an ongoing custody battle. The pair already have court-ordered restraining orders against each other. They share a young daughter after a brief marriage that began in 2022 and ended in June 2025.
After a May court hearing, Moreno alleged that Miller insulted Zashin’s fiancée in front of witnesses at an Ohio courthouse, and alleged that after a hearing this week, the congressman physically grabbed Zashin and another attorney.
“Unless restrained,” Moreno wrote in an affidavit, Miller “will continue to harass, threaten, and communicate with my counsel directly.” Moreno said that Miller also has “harassed, threatened, and communicated directly” with her past legal teams as well.
AP Photo/Amanda Andrade-Rhoades, File
Miller represents a Republican-leaning district in the Cleveland area and is running for a third term. Moreno is the daughter of Republican Ohio Sen. Bernie Moreno.
Thursday’s legal developments are the latest in months of court documents and public reports reviewed by CBS News that detail allegations of abuse by Miller against his ex-wife and his child. Miller has strenuously denied all of the allegations against him, pointing to the fact that he still has joint custody of his daughter, and has accused his ex-wife of defaming him and abusing their child herself.
Responding to the recent accusations in a livestream on X on Sunday, Miller denied that he abused his daughter or his ex-wife. He cast doubt on the timing of the allegations, suggesting that they were made to sway the custody fight, while arguing that his ex-wife has engaged in a pattern of reporting “serious and destructive allegations with absolutely no evidence.”
According to court documents and police reports, on Feb. 1, Moreno alleged that Miller physically assaulted her during a custody exchange at his residence in Bay Village, Ohio, in front of their daughter.
Moreno, a police report alleges, went to pick up the child at Miller’s home, where he allegedly “threw” her “against the wall,” which “resulted in an obvious grab mark on her upper arm and bruising to her stomach and side where she hit the wall.”
The officer who wrote the report then details conversations with a county child protection specialist about another alleged incident two weeks later, resulting in the young child being diagnosed with a mid-right clavicle fracture.
The officer wrote in the report that a bruise accompanying the injury “appears to be a handprint and appears to have been inflicted.”
Moreno also told the police that after staying with Miller, the child said to her: “Daddy kill you,” according to the police report.
When Moreno emailed Miller asking about the statement, Miller denied that the child “would have heard anything like that from him,” the police report added.
Moreno told police there was another domestic incident in March 2025 between the two, and another incident in which Miller “previously held a gun to her head as well,” a police officer wrote after the Feb. 1 report.
According to the Feb. 1 report and other court filings from her legal team in the defamation suit, in 2024 Miller “threw onto Ms. Moreno hot water from a pan of eggs he’d just cooked” after she told the congressman she planned to leave him.
After that incident was reported in the media, Miller sued Moreno for defamation, citing “considerable reputational and financial harm” caused by her allegations that he was a “violent and abusive husband and father.” Miller said Sunday that the incident occurred when the pair was still married and was “horseplay.” He claimed that he used the sprayer attached to the kitchen sink, which he said did not reach scalding temperatures, to spray water at Moreno.
Subsequently, Miller claimed to an Ohio magistrate judge that his current girlfriend was present at the house for the first alleged February incident, but an attorney for Miller later retracted the statement.
Miller filed a domestic violence case against Moreno in February, but moved to drop it three months later. The request was signed off on this week, with a judge finding that Miller “was not under any apparent infirmity and did not appear to have been threatened by or in fear of” Moreno.
According to sworn testimony from Moreno in a May hearing about Miller’s domestic violence case against his ex-wife, Moreno said that Miller admitted he was abusive to her and admitted to being abusive in writing.
Court transcripts also detail Moreno saying Miller made threatening statements against her father, a first-term senator who was elected in 2024, though there are no specifics mentioned.
In an X post from May, Miller criticized his former father-in-law, calling it “unfortunate” that the senator “continues to fund and enable his daughter’s malicious campaign to ruin my life despite his knowledge of her mental health issues.”
Sen. Moreno’s office said in a statement Friday that his “top priority is the safety and well-being of his daughter and granddaughter. While he does not litigate these matters in the media or respond to baseless public attacks, he will do whatever it takes to ensure a just outcome for his family.”
When NOTUS asked Moreno if Republicans should replace Miller on the ticket, he responded: “I don’t know.”
Miller and his campaign have denied the allegations against him.
“The facts speak for themselves: the court has continued to permit him joint custody of his child. If there were credible evidence supporting these outrageous accusations, that simply would not be the case,” Abigail Angelos, a spokeswoman for Max Miller’s campaign, told CBS News in a statement. “Congressman Miller will continue to vigorously defend his reputation against false and reckless allegations designed to inflame public opinion rather than reflect reality. This narrative has gone on long enough.”
In a court transcript from after the alleged February incidents, Miller said that Moreno “is making allegations against me to not only abuse to our daughter, but she is making allegations against me to her that never happened.”
Miller added, “I have video and text message evidence showing the contrary of that. And she’s not mentally well, Your Honor.” He later said, “I was told by two separate doctors that she was diagnosed bipolar.”
“I also believe that my ex-wife is purposefully hurting my daughter,” Miller alleged, after saying a few months before the hearing that Moreno gave the daughter a black eye.
Miller said “absolutely not” when asked whether he caused a collarbone injury to the daughter, and said it was “absolutely not” true that he threw his ex-wife against a wall and grabbed her arm during a custody exchange on Feb. 1.
Moreno is not the first woman to accuse Miller of abuse. Stephanie Grisham, a former White House aide in President Trump’s first term, accused Miller of “physical abuse” in a book and a Washington Post op-ed. Miller denied the alleged abuse and filed a defamation suit against Grisham, which Miller later moved to dismiss with prejudice.
CBS News has also reached out to Miller’s House office for comment.