Early on in Ohio Republican Congressman Max Miller’s divorce, his attorneys filed a dubious set of motions which have the Association of Family and Conciliation Court (AFCC) fingerprints on them.
Congressman Miller filed for divorce on August 27, 2024, from Emily Moreno, the daughter of Ohio Republican Senator Bernie Moreno.
The AFCC gambit
Exactly one month later, his attorneys- Larry Zukerman, Adam Brown, Pamela MacAdams, and Luke Brewer- filed two motions- one to appoint a guardian ad litem (GAL) and another to appoint a psychological evaluator.
I reached out to the lawyers and to Congressman Miller’s office but received no response.
In an affidavit in support of the two motions, Congressman Miller stated that Emily Moreno was keeping their daughter away, “Affiant states that since August 1, 2024, when the Defendant absconded from their family home with the parties nine (9) month old daughter, R.M., Defendant has withheld meaningful parenting time from Plaintiff and refused to permit Plaintiff to co-parent R.M.”
At the time, there was no custody order, so Congressman Miller could not file a contempt motion.
Still, asking to appoint two court appointees would have done little to help Congressman Miller spend time with his daughter, at least in the short term.
Court appointees like to take months to investigate- and run up bills- and many want to produce reports. They aren’t likely to support action quickly (quick action means fewer billable hours).
It is in line with the AFCC playbook; AFCC believes that whatever the problem, the solution is to appoint someone. Below is part of my 2015 treatise on AFCC.
AFCC didn’t create the term “high conflict” divorces, but the group has done a lot to turn it into a household word. “The challenges posed by high-conflict families were front-and-center issues for most courts, and AFCC members led the way in developing new processes and techniques for working with these challenging family members,” according to AFCC’s website.
“For the last 30 years, mediation and, to a lesser extent custody evaluations have dominated the family dispute resolution landscape,” an AFCC white paper from 2004 stated. “Only recently have a very few court service agencies begun to explore a triage process to select from a menu of services.”
AFCC literature recommends the use of a plethora of court professionals—custody evaluators, guardians ad litem, parenting coordinators, mediators, therapists, etc.—to defuse “high conflict” divorces.
“Parenting coordination is appropriate for high conflict cases dealing with child-related issues,” according to an AFCC manual. What none of the AFCC literature promoting court professional services mentions is that these services are often compulsory and that litigants are charged $250 an hour and more to pay for the services.
(I’ve stated many times that the way to reform family court is to eliminate all court appointments.)
The abuse allegations
Congressman Miller has since been accused of a plethora of abuse- including putting a gun to Emily’s head, breaking his daughter’s collarbone, and throwing scalding water at Emily.
His ex-girlfriend, Stephanie Grisham (a former Trump aide), also accused him of abuse.
Grisham told Trump during his first term, but Trump endorsed Miller for Congress in 2022 anyway.
Congressman Miller has denied all allegations, and in a secretly recorded audio, he claimed that the water he threw at Emily wasn’t that hot. He said in that recording that the incident was playful.
The scalding water incident may explain why Ms. Moreno was reticent to share their daughter. It occurred, allegedly, on August 1, 2024, when she told her husband she planned to file for divorce.
She claimed that throwing the water at her was his abusive response.
While outwardly counterintuitive, it’s often part of litigation strategy for an abuser to ask for a plethora of court appointees, the way that Miller’s divorce lawyers did.
In one notorious case from Connecticut, after Sunny Kelley’s ex-husband was accused of molestation, more than ten court appointees- all affiliated with AFCC- were appointed and ran interference for the alleged abuser. Sunny spent over $1 million trying and failing to protect her son.
Dr. Deborah Koricke
Miller didn’t get his requests of a GAL or a psychological evaluator, but a parenting coordinator was appointed later.
That parenting coordinator, Dr. Deborah Koricke, did Congressman Miller’s bidding. In a May 2, 2026, deposition, she downplayed the abuse allegations and recommended joint custody.
The advocacy group, One Mom’s Battle, previously cited Dr. Koricke as a bad court actor.
Tina Swithin, who runs One Mom’s Battle, declined an interview as she’s semi-retired after experiencing numerous health issues.
Did Congressman Miller commit perjury
In that September 2024 affidavit, Congressman Miller also likely committed perjury which has yet to be examined.
Along with claiming that Emily was keeping their daughter away, he also suggested she had bi-polar.
Affiant further states that during Defendant’s pregnancy, this Affiant was informed by Defendant’s obgyn that medical records reflect a prior diagnosis of bi-polar disorder;
Affiant further states that he inquired about such of Defendant, and she acknowledged having been so diagnosed;
Congressman Miller didn’t name the OBGYN in the affidavit.
If this happened as he claimed, that OBGYN would have violated HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.
Medical records are supposed to be guarded dutifully by medical professionals; it’s hard to believe that an OBGYN would have casually revealed something which was in Emily’s medical records, even to her husband.
The claim is even less believable considering that the allegation- that Emily had bi-polar- was not mentioned in his initial complaint.
In his initial complaint, all that Congressman Miller said about custody was, “Plaintiff be awarded temporary and permanent shared allocation of parental rights and parental responsibilities (shared parenting) over the parties’ minor child.”
That was filed on August 27, 2024, almost a month after Congressman Miller then stated that Emily was keeping their daughter away.
I reached out to Ms. Moreno’s attorneys at the Zashin Law Group, but I received no response.
This is where Republicans need to stop flinching. Max Miller is not worth a safe Republican seat. The district should be winnable if the nominee is not carrying a domestic-abuse scandal, a child-endangerment fight, an Ethics Committee investigation, and a public file-dump disaster involving his own toddler. Miller denies the allegations, but politics is not a criminal trial. Candidate fitness matters. Judgment matters. Family values matter. Trump may feel torn because Miller was his aide, but Emily Moreno was in Trumpworld too, and Bernie Moreno is now a sitting U.S. senator watching his family get put through hell. The GOP does not need to defend every man with an “R” after his name. It needs to defend the seat, the child, the voters, and the standard. If Miller stays, Democrats get a weapon in a race they should not even be competitive in. If Republicans replace him, they likely keep the seat and end the bleeding.