TRIGGER WARNING: mentions of CSA, rape
On June 12th, 2024, many residents of Sagamore Hills were notified of a new sex offender being registered in their neighborhood.
Anthony Strong, charged with Pandering Sexually Oriented Matter involving a minor, is the son of former school board member Tammy Strong. He is currently living at her residence in Sagamore Hills.
After Tammy’s two terms serving on the school board, she was a very vocal supporter and mentor to 2021 school board candidates, one of them being Tim Ellis. For Ellis’ second (failed) run in 2023, she donated money to his campaign, organized yard sign drop-offs, and collected signatures to get his name on the ballot. She even signed his petition twice! You might be asking yourself what does this relationship have to do with Anthony Strong’s newly acquired status as a registered sex offender?
For those of you who don’t know, Tim Ellis is a patrolman with the Sagamore Hills Police Department who has a controversial past.
In fall of 2023, The Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force (ICAC) forwarded a child pornography cyber tip to the Sagamore Hills Police Department. The tip was regarding Tammy’s son, Anthony Strong, who was named as the suspect. The cyber tip was assigned to Sagamore Hills Detective Victoria Miavitz.
According to the report filed by Det. Miavitz, (shown below) the tip was submitted due to Strong downloading a short clip of “an adult male having sexual intercourse with what appears to be a young white female”. Obviously, we all know that children don’t “have intercourse”. The video was of a child being raped. An interesting choice of words from Det. Miavitz. She uses the the word “intercourse” in many of her reports regarding suspects viewing child rape.
On September 21st, 2023, Det. Miavitz notes that she called Mr. Strong on the phone and informed him that his name was appearing in an investigation. Strong immediately retained legal counsel and refused to speak to Det. Miavitz any further, other than to give her the name of his lawyer. She then called his lawyer and informed him that his client, Mr. Strong, had been downloading child pornography.
Det. Miavits notes that she let Strong’s lawyer know that the Sagamore Hills PD had “only 1 file downloaded to their knowledge”, and that she’d be willing to ask the prosecutor if he could just “get probation or something” if he’d turn in his devices to the department. She then asked the attorney to find out if Strong would like to turn in the devices or wait for a search warrant.
At this point in the investigation, Det. Miavitz had not only let Strong know about the investigation his name was a part of, but she also informed his lawyer as to exactly what evidence they had against his client. She gave THEM the option of having a search warrant issued, giving Strong ample time to destroy the evidence.
Of course, Strong chose the search warrant instead of turning over his devices of his own free will. This little courtesy gave the Strong family THREE WEEKS to prepare for the search warrant that would finally be obtained on October 10th, and executed on October 12th, 2023. Reminder that Miavitz called Anthony to alert him to the investigation on September 21, 2023.
By the time officers gained access to the family home to search for and retrieve evidence – it was long gone. All that was left in Mr. Strong’s possession was a flip phone that appeared to be brand new. According to the suspect’s mother, Anthony had “lost” his phone the week before, sometime after his call with Det. Miavitz, where Miavitz informed him and his lawyer of the investigation and impending search. His Chromebook had supposedly broken and been thrown out as well. No evidence of child pornography could be located. It had all been disposed of.
Det. Miavitz notes in the report that “SHPD was confident that any items that could have contained illegal activity are long gone and have been disposed of”. She goes on to say that she asked Anthony if the items they were looking for had already been gotten rid of, and he shook his head with a nod – which she understood to mean that yes, he did. Strong received no charges for obstruction or destroying evidence, despite Miavitz admitting that she was aware he had gotten rid of the evidence.
It was important for us to note earlier in this blog that Anthony’s mother Tammy and Sagamore Hills Patrolman Tim Ellis are good friends and collaborators. Would any other child pornography suspect have been tipped off to the investigation against them? And by the investigating detective no less? Would the detective in any other case inform the lawyer of the suspect as to the exact evidence against them? In any other case, would the investigating detective offer to speak to the prosecutor asking them to simply give the suspect “probation or something”?
Does this seem like a very severe case of special treatment? “You scratched my back, now let me scratch yours”? We reached out to Sagamore HIlls Police Chief David Hayes on June 27th, to ask him if alerting child pornography suspects to their impeding investigations and search warrants is standard practice for the SHPD.
We never did hear back from David Hayes, so we decided to check for ourselves. We requested every case that mentions Internet Crimes Against Children from the SHPD to see how those were handled, and if suspects were given a heads up.
All of the cases we received back were handled by Det. Miavitz, and NONE of the child pornography suspects were given a heads up before the search warrant was executed. One even attempted to hide his phone, which was recovered, and he was still charged with destroying evidence.
Example 2 (suspect hides phone
So WHY was Anthony Strong given three weeks notice? WHY was he allowed to destroy his evidence with no repercussions? Did this have something to do with Ptl. Tim Ellis’ friendship with Strong’s mother, Tammy Strong? Is this yet another example of corruption within the Sagamore Hills Police Department?
In the end, Strong did end up just getting “probation or something”. He was sentenced to a mere 18 months of probation after pleading guilty to Pandering Sexually-Oriented Matter Involving a Minor R.C. 2907.322(A)(5). He ended up serving NO jail time, and from what we can tell, he was not even required to appear in person for most of his court hearings, instead being allowed to appear via video conference.
We requested the body camera video from the SHPD’s visit to the Strong household, and while Det. Miavitz was not wearing a body camera, we have obtained the footage off of another officer’s camera. In our next blog, we will discuss everything that can be seen in the footage, including Det. Miavitz admitting that she gave Strong a heads up so he could destroy his evidence.
We ask you dear readers, how do you feel about the actions described above? Do they sit well with you? Imagine someone you know being the child in the explicit video – would you be okay with how the detective handled this case? For us here at The Real Nordonia, it leaves us with far more questions than answers. If you’re concerned about how the detective handled this case and how it now gives the appearance of special treatment, then we implore you to reach out to the Sagamore PD, the Ohio Attorney General and any other state or government agencies that should be taking a look at this.
Keep up the good work!