Fostoria Free Press Founder Advances on Portage County Sheriff Probe

Disclosure: The Fostoria Free Press and its founder, Joshua Tolento, are a party to the public records dispute described in this story.

RAVENNA, Ohio — The founder of The Fostoria Free Press sent the Portage County Sheriff’s Office a combined pre-suit complaint by U.S. Postal Service certified mail on Thursday, Nov. 12, 2026, saying the office has three days to comply with Ohio’s public-records law or the paper will meet the requirements for an original action in the Ohio Supreme Court seeking a writ of mandamus.

The letter is dated 11-12-2026 and appears on Fostoria Free Press letterhead from the paper’s editor. It is addressed to the Person Responsible for Public Records, Portage County Sheriff’s Office, Attn: Sheriff Bruce D. Zuchowski, 8240 Infirmary Road, Ravenna, Ohio 44266, and was sent certified mail, return receipt requested, under USPS article number 7022-2410-0000-7606-1828. The subject line, as visible on the letter, describes a “Combined Pre-Suit Complaint under R.C. 149.43(C)(1)” and refers to public-records requests that include one dated Oct. 5, 2026.

The Fostoria Free Press posted a photograph of the letter on Facebook on Thursday afternoon and said the sheriff’s office “has 3 days to comply with Ohio Public Record Law (ORC 149.43).” Failure to comply, the post said, “will result in meeting the Ohio Supreme Court requirements for an Original Action Lawsuit – Request for Writ of Mandamus.”

A writ of mandamus is a court order that compels a government office to perform a duty the law requires. Here, that duty is producing public records under the Ohio Public Records Act, Ohio Revised Code 149.43, which requires public offices to make records available promptly. Before a requester may ask a court to order compliance, R.C. 149.43(C)(1) requires written notice and a three-business-day period in which the office may cure the problem. Thursday’s Facebook post stated the window as three days to comply; it did not say whether those were calendar or business days, or whether the clock starts on mailing or on receipt.

What the paper says comes next

If the office does not comply, the Free Press said, it will be in a position to bring an original action in the Ohio Supreme Court for a writ of mandamus. The paper said public-records suits of this kind are normally referred to mediation with a court-appointed mediator, and that if the sheriff’s office still does not comply, the case would go before a judge. The Free Press said it will demand that “all penalties and court costs” be paid by the office. The paper has previously said it will seek statutory damages of up to $1,000 per request, plus court costs.

This article reports a pre-suit notice. The Free Press has not published a report stating that a mandamus petition, or any other lawsuit, has been filed in this matter. The Portage County Sheriff’s Office has not publicly responded to the notice.

The timeline

The dispute, as the Free Press has reported it, began with a public-records request submitted Sept. 4, 2026, seeking incident reports, video and other records tied in part to an August confrontation at the Portage County Randolph Fair. The request was signed “The People.” The office, according to a later notice the paper published, emailed an acknowledgment on Sept. 8 saying the request had been received and was under review. The Free Press has said the office did not respond to a Sept. 27 follow-up.

On Oct. 4, Joshua Tolento, the paper’s founder and editor, sent a pre-suit complaint over that first request, by email and by fax, stating that it was notice to the public office and was not a court filing. The notice, as the paper published it, said 30 days had passed, that no records had been produced, and that the office had not issued a written denial, a statement that records did not exist, or a cost estimate. The October 4 article said the office had three days to respond and, if it did, until Oct. 30, 2026, to fulfill the request.

The Free Press has reported that it filed a second public-records request on Oct. 5, 2026, though it has not published the item-by-item list of what that request sought. According to the paper, the sheriff’s office acknowledged the request the same day, follow-up emails on Oct. 7 and Oct. 27 drew no reply, and an attempted large-file delivery failed when Google’s servers did not accept it. The paper said the office had not denied the request or said the records do not exist.

In the early hours of Oct. 28, the Free Press emailed a second pre-suit notice over the October 5 request, saying documents were being prepared for two suits seeking release of the records and $1,000 in statutory damages each, plus court costs. It calculated that if the office was treated as receiving that notice on Oct. 28, the earliest day it could file would be Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026. A companion article published the same night still treated Oct. 30 as the production deadline on the September 4 request and said that, as of that report, those records had not been produced.

Later on Oct. 28, Tolento sent a third, separate public-records request, saying it did not replace the September 4 and October 5 requests, which “remain open.” In that article, he also wrote that he intended to file in the Ohio Supreme Court on Oct. 30 over the earlier requests. The Free Press has not published a later article confirming that any such filing was made.

As of the paper’s last published account on Oct. 28, the sheriff’s office had not produced the records sought in the September 4 and October 5 requests, and the paper has not published a later confirmation of production. Thursday’s certified-mail notice and Facebook post treat the matter as still unresolved and call for compliance within three days.