Kansas county agrees to pay $3 million over law enforcement raid on a small-town newspaper

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TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A rural Kansas county has agreed to pay a little more than $3 million and apologize over a law enforcement raid on a small-town weekly newspaper in August 2023 that sparked an outcry over press freedom.

Marion County was among multiple defendants in five federal lawsuits filed by the Marion County Record's parent company, the paper's publisher, newspaper employees, a former Marion City Council member whose home also was raided, and the estate of the publisher's 98-year-old mother, the paper's co-owner, who died the day after the raid. An attorney for the newspaper, Bernie Rhodes, released a copy of the five-page signed agreement Tuesday.

Eric Meyer, the paper's editor and publisher, told The Associated Press he is hoping the size of the payment is large enough to discourage similar actions against news organizations in the future. Legal claims against the city and city officials have not been settled, and Meyer said he believes they will face a larger judgment though he doesn't expect those claims to be resolved for some time.

“The goal isn’t to get the money. The money is symbolic,” Meyer said. “The press has basically been under assault.”

The raid triggered a national debate about press freedom focused on Marion, a town of about 1,900 people set among rolling prairie hills about 150 miles (240 kilometers) southwest of Kansas City, Missouri. Meyer’s 98-year-old mother, Joan, lived with him and died of a heart attack that he blamed on the stress of the raid.

Three days after the raid, the local prosecutor said there wasn't enough evidence to justify it. Experts said Marion's police chief at the time, Gideon Cody, was on legally shaky ground when he ordered the raid, and a former top federal prosecutor for Kansas suggested that it might have been a criminal violation of civil rights, saying: “I’d probably have the FBI starting to look.”

Two special prosecutors who reviewed the raid and its aftermath said nearly a year later that the Record had committed no crimes before Cody led the raid, that the warrants signed by a judge contained inaccurate information from an “inadequate investigation” and the searches were not legally justified. Cody resigned as police chief in October 2023.

Cody is scheduled to go to trial in February in Marion County on a felony charge of interfering with a judicial process, accused by the two special prosecutors of persuading a potential witness to withhold information from authorities when they later investigated his conduct. He had pleaded not guilty and did not respond to a text message Tuesday seeking comment about the county's agreement.

Attorneys for the city and the county and the county administrator did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

Sheriff Jeff Soyez issued an apology that mentioned the Meyers by name, along with former council member Ruth Herbel and her husband.

“The Sheriff’s Office wishes to express its sincere regrets to Eric and Joan Meyer and Ruth and Ronald Herbel for its participation in the drafting and execution of the Marion County Police Department’s search warrants on their homes and the Marion County Record," the sheriff's statement said.

The Marion County Commission approved the agreement Monday after discussing it in private for 15 minutes.

A search warrant tied the raid -- which was led by Marion’s police chief -- to a dispute between the newspaper and a local restaurant owner who had accused the Marion County Record of invading her privacy and illegally accessing information about her and her driving record.

Meyer has said he believed the newspaper’s aggressive coverage of local politics and issues played a role and that his newsroom had been examining the police chief’s past work history.