Cops Raid Newspaper After Reporters Start Looking Into Alleged Misconduct by Local Business Owner, Police Chief

Police in Kansas raided a local newspaper on Friday after its reporters got a tip about sensitive information concerning a local business owner, according to a report from the Kansas Reflector.

The newspaper reported that its co-owner, 98-year-old Joan Meyer, died at her home on Saturday, attributing her death to stress related to the events.

"Stressed beyond her limits and overwhelmed by hours of shock and grief after illegal police raids on her home and the Marion County Record newspaper office Friday, 98-year-old newspaper co-owner Joan Meyer, otherwise in good health for her age, collapsed Saturday afternoon and died at her home," the newspaper stated on its website.

"She had not been able to eat after police showed up at the door of her home Friday with a search warrant in hand. Neither was she able to sleep Friday night."

In a full-force showing Friday morning, the Marion Police Department, along with the city’s two sheriff’s deputies, showed up at the office of the Marion County Record, a family-owned weekly newspaper that was first published in 1869 and focuses on the central Kansas county of less than 12,000 people.

They took “everything we have,” owner and publisher Eric Meyer said, according to the Reflector. 

They also raided Meyer’s home and seized his computers and various records and documentation. Police told Meyer that the electronics would be sent for examination to a lab.

"It’s going to have a chilling effect on us even tackling issues," Meyer told the Reflector. "A chilling effect on people giving us information."

When police raided Meyer's home, they also confiscated his 98-year-old mother's Alexa smart speaker, which she used to stream TV shows and ask for help, the Marion County Record reported in its own account of the raid.

When asked by The Messenger, police chief Gideon Cody declined to give a specific reason for the raid or reveal what investigation the raid was connected to, and instead referred to the Federal Privacy Protection Act, highlighting that the Act can be used when "there is reason to believe a journalist is taking part in the underlying wrongdoing."

The raid comes after reporters at the Marion County Record got a tip about sensitive information related to restaurant owner Kari Newell. 

The Peabody Gazette-Bulletin, a sister publication of the Marion County Record, reported last week that Newell had ejected the outlet’s staff from a public forum with U.S. Rep. Jake LaTurner, who represents the second congressional district in Kansas. LaTurner did not immediately return The Messenger’s request for comment. 

In a conversation with Marisa Kabas for her Substack, The Handbasket, Meyer said he has not yet heard from LaTurner's office.

A confidential source shared with the Marion County Record that Newell had at one point received a DUI and continued to drive without a valid license. The newspaper never published the information out of suspicion that they "were being set up," Meyer said, according to the Reflector.

Instead, Meyer contacted the police and told them what he found. When the police notified Newell, she complained, falsely saying the Marion County Record disseminated sensitive documents.

The Reflector reported that Newell had admitted that she got a DUI, saying she "foolishly" received one in 2008. She also said she operated a vehicle without a valid license "out of necessity."

She made this confession on her personal Facebook account using a changed name, according to the Reflector.

On that same Facebook account, Newell bashed journalists.

"Journalists have become the dirty politicians of today, twisting narrative for bias agendas, full of muddied half-truths,” she wrote, according to the Reflector. “We rarely get facts that aren’t baited with misleading insinuations.”

The message of the raid, in Meyer’s view, was to "mind your own business or we’re going to step on you," he told the Reflector. 

Meyer told The Handbasket that the raid comes just weeks after the Marion County Record also began looking into misconduct allegations by Gideon Cody, the new chief of the Marion Police Department.

In The Handbasket, Meyer said one of the Marion County Record reporters has for weeks been investigating claims from multiple former coworkers of Cody, who allegedly shared that he was rumored to be demoted at his previous job over charges related to sexual misconduct.

When The Messenger reached Cody for comment, he declined to give details on the raid, citing a "criminal investigation."

He also did not address the allegations about him Meyer said his newspaper had been investigating. Additionally, he did not answer The Messenger's specific question asking whether the allegations had anything to do with why the raid occurred.

But Cody cited the Privacy Protection Act of 1980 in his response to The Messenger, saying "in generalities," journalists are protected from newsroom raids by law enforcement officials.

"It is true that in most cases, it requires police to use subpoenas, rather than search warrants, to search the premises of journalists unless they themselves are suspects in the offense that is the subject of the search," he said.

One of the circumstances in which it might be appropriate to raid a newsroom, Cody told The Messenger, is "when there is reason to believe the journalist is taking part in the underlying wrongdoing."

Cody did not specify whether he believes Meyer or the newsroom committed wrongdoing.

"The Marion Kansas Police Department believes it is the fundamental duty of the police is to ensure the safety, security, and well-being of all members of the public," he said. "This commitment must remain steadfast and unbiased, unaffected by political or media influences, in order to uphold the principles of justice, equal protection, and the rule of law for everyone in the community."

Meyer told The Handbasket that the files for Cody's investigation were on the computers seized by Marion police.

He added that he wasn't planning to publish anything on Cody just yet.

"I wouldn't feel comfortable printing individual allegations, but it is true that we were investigating him and we had decided not to run anything at this point," Meyer told The Handbasket. "We're not making any allegations against him, but we had investigated allegations."

The Marion County Record has plans to file a federal lawsuit, according to the article posted on its website.

"Our first priority is to be able to publish next week," Meyer said in the article. "But we also want to make sure no other news organization is ever exposed to the Gestapo tactics we witnessed today. We will be seeking the maximum sanctions possible under law."

Since the raid, Meyer said the newspaper has received an outpouring of support. Meyer told The Handbasket that the paper saw an "incredible swelling of people buying subscriptions."