TOLEDO — A man who was wrongly arrested and charged based on the lies of a drug informant is suing the Putnam County Sheriff's Office saying its members should have easily recognized the errors.

Joseph Michel, of Marysville, said the agency and its officers violated his civil rights by wrongly arresting and prosecuting him. He said he not only was charged with a crime but lost his reputation, which, as a self-employed businessman, has destroyed him financially.

Michel names the agency, Sheriff Jim Beutler, Putnam County, the board of commissioners and four deputies in the lawsuit he filed this week in U.S. District Court. He is seeking an unspecified amount to compensate him for his loss, and punish the agency and it's agents.

The drug unit at the Putnam County Sheriff's Office used Jodi Kisseberth, who was working off drug cases of her own, as a confidential informant to line up others in the drug trade, when three cases were made against Michel, according to court records.

Drug agents used Kisseberth to buy heroin off a man she identified as Michel at the parking lot of an Ottawa fast-food restaurant on Feb. 25, 2010. Agents used Kisseberth to set up two additional buys in March 2010 from a man Kisseberth identified as Michel, the lawsuit said.

Michel was indicted by a grand jury in August 2010 and arrested Aug. 23, 2010. He denied selling drugs, the lawsuit said.

Once Michel and his attorney received the evidence against him, including a video recording of the three buys, they pointed out to sheriff drug agents Michel was not the man in the video. Prosecutors quickly dropped the charges against Michel, according to court records.

The Sheriff's Office and Prosecutor's Office began an investigation, which led to charges against Kisseberth. She eventually was convicted and sentenced to six years in prison plus an additional three years for a case in Hancock County.

Michel accuses sheriff agents of not properly doing their jobs by failing to initially recognize that he was not the man the video. Furthermore, he accuses Beutler and other supervisors at the department of failing to properly oversee their drug agents and failing to have policies in place to prevent such problems.

Beutler could not be reached for comment Thursday.

In October, Prosecutor Gary Lammers announced he dropped the drug cases against seven people after learning a drug informant lied. Lammers said prosecutors could not go forward with any case connected to the informant, who he did not name at the time but identified as a woman. When Lammers and agents questioned the woman she admitted to lying.

"To have someone like this play games with us is totally unacceptable," he said.

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