Former classmates describe Ohio Rep. Max Miller as ‘hotheaded’ and ‘misogynistic’

By Allison Gordon, CNN

(CNN) — Dan Cohen sat across the table from a former classmate who had spent years antagonizing him when they were growing up together and playing baseball.

The classmate had something he wanted to get off his chest.

“He was newly sober and just apologizing for just being mean to me,” Cohen recalled of the conversation, which occurred around 2011.

At the time, Cohen said “it meant a lot” because he thought the man sitting across from him had changed his ways.

Now, he’s not so sure.

That former classmate, Cohen said, was Max Miller, the embattled Ohio Republican congressman whose reelection bid has been dogged by allegations of domestic violence and uncontrolled anger leveled by his ex-wife.

The claims by Miller’s ex-wife, Emily Moreno, include accusations that he held a gun to her head and threw hot water at her. Moreno’s attorney, meanwhile, is seeking a restraining order against Miller for himself, alleging in a filing last month that the congressman physically accosted him outside the courtroom and made disparaging remarks about his fiancee’s looks.

In a fiery interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper last week, Miller denied the allegations and accused his ex-wife, the daughter of GOP Ohio Sen. Bernie Moreno, of fabricating claims for political reasons.

Miller, 37, has rejected calls to drop out of his congressional race. Instead, he called for a House Ethics Committee investigation into his alleged conduct, which he says will exonerate him. The panel opened an investigation last week. He did not respond to requests for comment on this story.

A CNN examination of Miller’s past conduct, which included a review of public records and interviews with more than half a dozen former classmates and acquaintances revealed that Miller has struggled – as a youth and as an adult – with volatile outbursts and was known to have made his peers uncomfortable with aggressive behavior and insulting comments, at times while intoxicated.

“It did look like he was doing well for a little bit – at least from what I knew,” said Cohen about Miller’s apology some 15 years ago.

“I obviously think different of him now.”

A ‘hotheaded’ instigator

Max Leonard Miller was born into a wealthy family with a long history in northeastern Ohio. His grandfather Samuel was a well-known real estate developer acclaimed for his extensive philanthropy, including charities that helped fund Holocaust education and remembrance.

Miller’s parents stewarded his grandfather’s legacy, overseeing multiple charities in the Cleveland area. Friends who grew up with Miller and his younger brother Jake remember lively Shabbat dinners and involved parents – recalling Miller’s mom and dad attending sports games and cheering them on from the stands.

“It was just a very welcoming house to be in,” said Cohen, who competed against Miller on the baseball team since they both played the same position: catcher.

While Miller’s brother Jake was friendly and kind, acquaintances said, Max had a different reputation. Although he could be as charming at times, classmates told CNN, he tended to be confrontational.

“He was one of those kids where he would be different one-on-one versus in a group,” Cohen said. “When he was one-on-one with you, he could be endearing and honest and let his guard down.”

River McWilliams, who knew Miller growing up, described him as “hotheaded.” As a high school athlete, he said, Miller could throw tantrums typical of a teen player — such as slamming his helmet to the ground after a bad at-bat. But off the field, McWilliams said, “if you ran into him at a party when he had had a little too much drink, he would be quick to kind of like start fights and instigate stuff… He was that kid.”

Another former baseball teammate who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation told CNN that even some parents “were intimidated” by Miller. “It was a combination of his family and money dynamics and also his personality and having that temper.”

Blair Kurit, another classmate, said she remembered Miller as aggressive and sexist. “I don’t really think he was friends with any women. He was belligerent … and definitely misogynistic back then,” she told CNN.

Another former female classmate who also requested to speak to CNN anonymously for fear of retaliation said Miller had a short temper. He “was not a gentle person” in high school, “not someone you wanted to be close with as a female,” she explained. Several former baseball teammates also told CNN they witnessed Miller brag about his sexual exploits and deride girls and women with comments about their physical appearances, particularly their weight.

One story that has circulated widely among Miller’s former classmates stemmed from a party around spring 2006, in which a teenage girl accused Miller of pushing her down some stairs after she rebuffed his advances.

McWilliams told CNN that the party took place at Miller’s parents’ house and that the girl’s distress remains fresh in his mind. He said he didn’t witness the incident, but that he encountered the girl right after she said it occurred. She was “hysterically crying,” he said. “I have vivid memories of walking her kind of down the street, comforting her, making sure that she was OK, checking to see if she needed, you know, medical attention or something like that.”

Politico was the first to report about this incident in 2021. The woman declined to speak to CNN but had texted a Mother Jones reporter that the incident “was one of the more traumatic nights of my life.”

Miller has repeatedly denied the allegation occurred when asked by reporters over the years.

Kurit remembered a different party when they were teenagers where Miller made her uncomfortable. While she and her friend discussed their college plans, Max “said he was going to join the Army, so he could ‘shoot some Arabs.’”

“I remember it because it really disturbed me,” she said. “It was like antithetical to the Shaker Heights ethos” – a reference to the community’s reputation as a liberal haven.

Returning home

Court and police records show that as a young man, Miller landed in troubling situations that often involved alcohol, drugs or violence.

In 2007, records show he was charged with “disorderly conduct/intoxication” and “obstruction of official business.” The files were sealed by the Shaker Heights Municipal Court, but the public docket for the case shows that the charges were dismissed after he pleaded “no contest” as part of a program for first time offenders.

The Washington Post, which first reported on the case, disclosed that Miller was arrested for allegedly punching a man in the back of the head and then running from police.

The following summer, Miller was charged with underage consumption of alcohol. He pleaded no contest in that case, and the file was also sealed by the court.

While Miller did not respond to CNN’s specific requests about these charges, when contacted by the Post at the time, he said, “Growing up, everyone makes mistakes. … Who I was in the past is not who I am now.”

A couple of years later, in 2010, Miller was out with a group partying in the bustling Coventry neighborhood of Cleveland Heights when he got into an altercation at a hookah bar that ended with him punching through a window around 2 a.m.

The police report, obtained by CNN, described Miller as “bleeding heavily from his left wrist” and said he was taken to the hospital. He was issued a citation for criminal mischief, a misdemeanor.

About nine months later, Miller had another police run-in at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. This time, he was charged with operating a vehicle while intoxicated after crashing a Jeep into a light pole. According to police records reviewed by CNN, he was discovered the next morning with “bloodshot eyes, an odor of alcohol, and an abrasion on his forehead.” Although he came in under the legal alcohol limit on his blood test, a subsequent lab test showed that Miller’s blood tested positive for drugs including MDMA and Clonazepam.

This incident seems to have been a turning point for Miller. Around this time, he apologized to Cohen, his old baseball teammate, as part of his sobriety journey.

Two additional sources who spoke with CNN confirmed Miller was actively in recovery and appeared to be turning a corner at this time.

MAGA ascendancy

After graduating from Cleveland State University in 2013, Miller served in the Marine Corps Reserves and subsequently moved into politics. He joined Marco Rubio’s primary campaign for president before linking up with then-candidate Donald J. Trump to work on his 2016 campaign.

After Trump’s victory, Miller served as a White House aide and entered into a relationship with press secretary Stephanie Grisham.

Their relationship ended acrimoniously around a year later, and Grisham wrote in her memoir about a physically abusive boyfriend who was also a White House staffer.

Although Grisham did not use his name, it seemed clear she was referring to Miller, and in 2021, he sued her for defamation. He has denied ever assaulting her. He later voluntarily dropped the lawsuit, and Grisham has not spoken publicly about the relationship since.

After Trump left office in 2021, Miller reconnected with Emily Moreno, whom he’d met years earlier while working on Rubio’s campaign. The two married in 2022 at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey.

In November 2022, with Trump’s endorsement, Miller was elected to Congress for Ohio’s 7th District – a solidly Republican seat.

A marriage on the rocks

After Miller and Moreno’s daughter was born in November 2023, their relationship became increasingly tumultuous, according to public records reviewed by CNN and a source who requested anonymity given fear of retaliation.

The source, who is familiar with the couple, told CNN that Miller and Moreno went through significant highs and lows during their short marriage. Following the birth of their child, the source said, Miller was cruel to his wife about her weight gain. Two years after their wedding, Miller filed for divorce. Since their split, a messy custody battle over the pair’s daughter has raged, bringing to light new allegations of abuse against the congressman.

In police videos obtained by CNN, Moreno emotionally described an incident in which she says he held a gun to her. Police interviewed Moreno and Miller as part of an investigation into a broken collarbone suffered by their daughter; no charges were filed in relation to that injury and police told CNN there are no ongoing investigations into Miller or Moreno.

Miller, in separate police interviews, denied he ever abused her, called his ex-wife “manipulative” and alleged she struggles with mental illness.

Reelection defiance

Scrutiny has intensified as Miller’s former father-in-law, senior GOP Sen. Bernie Moreno, addressed the issue publicly for the first time earlier this month. “As he has admitted privately, Max Miller needs serious psychological help,” Moreno said on X. “He is a danger to my daughter, and I hold my breath every minute he has custody of my granddaughter.”

Behind the scenes, CNN has reported, GOP strategists have warned that Miller faces an uphill battle to keep his seat as Republicans prepare for a significant fight to hang onto the House in the midterms.

The deadline for Miller to pull out of the race and be replaced by another candidate has now passed in Ohio.

“I’m going to continue to push. I am going to win this race,” Miller told CNN’s Jake Tapper last week, comparing his political struggle to that of Trump’s.

Cohen said his former classmate’s pugilistic demeanor does not surprise him.

“He is the same person who he was.”

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