Police raid of Kansas newspaper condemned

The Kansas Bureau of Investigation is looking into how and why Marion County sheriff’s deputies and local police raided the Marion County Record newspaper office and the homes of its owners and the town’s vice mayor Aug. 11.

Police seized computer equipment and cell phones from Record staff and the vice mayor. The case quickly gained national attention as an unprecedented violation of established American press rights.

“Freedom of the press is the core value when we think about our democracy,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Aug. 16. “We’ll continue to reaffirm and protect this fundamental right enshrined in the First Amendment. And so, you can certainly count on us to continue to do that.”

According to reporting by the Marion County Record, Marion police claimed Record staff had illegally accessed and disseminated the driving record of Kari Newell, a local restaurateur whose license was suspended for a driving under the influence conviction in 2008. She filed a police report claiming identity theft.

The Record didn’t release the document to anyone, but Newell accused the paper at a city council meeting Aug. 7 of providing the information to Vice Mayor Ruth Herbel, and she accused Herbel of sharing it.

Herbel received the document from the same source as the newspaper. She said she shared it only with City Administrator Brogan Jones because Newell was seeking endorsement of a catering liquor license at the meeting.

Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody applied for search warrants, which were signed by Marion County District Court Magistrate Judge Laura Viar. However, federal law requires police to subpoena journalists’ materials if law enforcement believes it has reason to investigate a newspaper. Viar did not respond to questions from the Kansas Reflector newspaper to explain why she approved a search warrant.

Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach said the bureau had not been involved in the searches and was not notified of them in advance.

At the bureau’s suggestion, Marion County Attorney Joel Ensey admitted the search warrant Cody obtained from Viar had serious shortcomings.

In a news release, Ensey said he reviewed the warrant applications three days after the search.

“Upon further review, I have come to the conclusion that insufficient evidence exists to establish a legally sufficient nexus between this alleged crime and the places searched and the items seized,” Ensey wrote.

Cody refused to comment to a Marion County Record reporter.

Separately, Publisher Eric Meyer said the newspaper was investigating tips that Cody had left his Kansas City, Missouri, police captain’s job in April to avoid repercussions for sexual misconduct allegations. Though the paper never published the information, details about the investigation – including the identities of Cody’s accusers – were in a computer seized by police.

Marion County Sheriff Jeff Soyez returned the newspaper’s seized items to its attorney on Aug. 16. Included were a computer and cell phone owned by Herbel, whose home was also raided under the warrant.

A data forensics expert examined the devices to determine if police had attempted to access any of them.

In the Record’s account of the search:

Two reporters were outside the newspaper’s office when Cody and other law enforcement officials arrived to execute the warrant. Cody gave reporter Deb Gruver a copy of a search warrant, then forcibly took her personal cell phone and confiscated Phyllis Zorn’s phone.

Police would not let staff inside and refused to let them answer or make any calls.

As police raided the Record office, they also raided the home Joan Meyer, the newspaper’s 98-year-old co-owner with her son, Eric Meyer. She watched police take her computer and a router and searched and photographed her son’s personal bank and investment statements.

Joan Meyer died the next day of “sudden cardiac arrest,” the Marion County coroner’s report stated.

Herbel said police seized a computer and cell phone from her house using an unsigned search warrant.

Eric Meyer told the Kansas Reflector that police were motivated by a confidential source who leaked sensitive documents to the newspaper, and the message was clear: “Mind your own business or we’re going to step on you.”

Kobach said state authorities were reviewing alleged crimes associated with the raid and were interested in whether someone had breached the Kansas Criminal Justice Information System.