Bruno v. Mills

Case Background

On November 12, 2019, Plaintiff · Richard P. Bruno, Jr., individually, as statutory beneficiary of Nathan R. Bruno, and as Administrator of the Estate of Nathan Bruno filed a Wrongful death lawsuit in the Rhode Island State, Newport County Superior Court(Case number: NC-2019-0433). Judge Richard A. Licht presided over the case.

Cause

Between December 2017 and January 2018, Defendant Ryan Moniz, the football coach at Portsmouth High School, received numerous harassing calls and text messages from an anonymous number. Moniz promptly reported these incidents to the Jamestown Police Department. In response, the police issued a subpoena to Cox Communications to trace the source of the communications. On February 1, 2018, Cox confirmed that the calls and messages originated from the cell phone of Nathan R. Bruno, a sixteen-year-old sophomore at Portsmouth High School and a football team member. That same day, Detective Derek Carlino, a co-Defendant in the case, shared this information with Moniz and contacted Nathan’s father, Richard P. Bruno, Jr. On February 2, 2018, Nathan and Richard attended an interview at the Jamestown Police Department, where Nathan confessed to sending the harassing messages to Moniz. He faced immediate charges of cyberstalking and cyber harassment. During the interview, Nathan indicated that two other Portsmouth students were involved but did not disclose their identities. On February 6, several unsuccessful attempts were made to convince Nathan to reveal the names of these students. This included meetings with school officials and discussions with peers. Richard communicated with Moniz about the possibility of Nathan issuing an apology. However, Moniz rejected this unless Nathan named the other participants.. Earlier that day,