Topeka, Kan.– A rural Kansas county has agreed to pay just over $3 million and apologize Law enforcement raids a small-town weekly newspaper In August 2023, which sparked widespread protests over press freedom.
Marion County was among several defendants in five federal lawsuits brought by the parent company of the Marion County Register, the newspaper’s publisher, newspaper employees, a former Marion City Council member whose home was also raided, and the estate of the publisher’s 98-year-old mother, the newspaper’s co-owner, who died the day after the raid. The newspaper’s attorney, Bernie Rhodes, released a copy of the five-page signed agreement on Tuesday.
Eric Mayer, the newspaper’s editor and publisher, told the Associated Press that he hopes the size of the amount is large enough to discourage similar actions against news organizations in the future. The legal claims against the city and its officials have not been settled, and Meyer said he believes they will face a larger judgment although he does not expect those claims to be resolved for some time.
“The goal is not to get money,” Mayer said. “Money is symbolic.” “The press has basically been attacked.”
The raid sparked a national debate about… Freedom of the press It focused on Marion, a town of about 1,900 people nestled among rolling prairie hills about 150 miles (240 kilometers) southwest of Kansas City, Missouri. Mayer’s mother, Joan, 98, lived with him and died of a heart attack which he blamed on the stress of the raid.
Three days after the raid, the local prosecutor said there was not enough evidence to justify it. The experts said Marion’s police chief at the time, Gideon Cody, was on shaky ground legally when he ordered the raid, and Kansas’ former top federal prosecutor suggested it might have been a criminal civil rights violation, saying, “I probably would have asked the FBI to start looking.”
Two special prosecutors Those who reviewed the raid and its aftermath nearly a year later said that the Register had committed no crimes before Cody led the raid, that the arrest warrants signed by the judge contained inaccurate information from an “inadequate investigation” and that the searches were not legally justified. Cody He resigned as police chief In October 2023.
Cody is scheduled to stand trial in February in Marion County Felony charge With interference in the judicial process, the two special prosecutors accused him of persuading a potential witness to withhold information from authorities when they later investigated his conduct. He has pleaded not guilty and did not respond to a text message Tuesday seeking comment on the county agreement.
Attorneys for the city, county and county administrator did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.
Sheriff Jeff Swayze issued an apology in which he mentioned the Myers family by name, along with former Councilwoman Ruth Herbal and her husband.
“The Sheriff’s Office would like to express its deepest regret to Eric and Joan Meyer and Ruth and Ronald Herbel for his involvement in drafting and executing search warrants issued by the Marion County Sheriff’s Department for their homes and the Marion County Registry,” the sheriff’s statement said.
The Marion County Commission approved the agreement Monday after discussing it privately for 15 minutes.
A search warrant linked the raid — which was led by the Marion police chief — to a dispute between the newspaper and a local restaurant owner who accused the Marion County Register of violating her privacy and illegally accessing information about her and her driving record.
Meyer said he believed the newspaper’s aggressive coverage of politics and local issues played a role and that his newsroom was examining the police chief’s past work history.