Journalist Scores $235,000 Settlement From Ex-Police Chief Who Raided Small Town Newspaper

An ex-big city cop who blew into a small town under suspicious circumstances to become police chief. A business owner seeking a liquor license who spent a lot of time driving around with a suspended license due to DUI violations. A small town paper that dug into all of these stories and more to the dismay of those featured in their stories. A county prosecutor who denied involvement in a blatantly unconstitutional raid until it became impossible to do so.

All of that would make for a great season of Fargo but it all really happened in Marion, Kansas, a town with a population of only 1,900. The police chief, the county sheriff, the county prosecutor, the business owner, her estranged ex-husband, and the state Bureau of Investigation all factored into this horrendous abuse of power that resulted in two raids by local law enforcement.

The first targeted the local newspaper, the Marion County Record. Its offices were raided and devices were seized from everyone in the building, along with the paper’s computers and servers. Then the home of the paper’s co-owners was raided — a raid that was greeted with outrage by the homeowner/paper owner: 98-year-old Joan Meyer. She died the day after the shocking raid of her home by then-police chief Gideon Cody and his co-conspirators.

Since then, multiple lawsuits have been filed. One was filed by journalist Deb Gruver. The police chief claimed the raid was justified because some vague Kansas computer crime law had been violated when journalists accessed (completely legally, btw) the business owner Kari Newell’s driving records. Deb Gruver did not access those records but she had been digging into Chief Cody’s past, wondering why someone working for the Kansas City PD would take a pay cut to preside over a much smaller department in a tiny rural town.

Gruver’s phone was seized personally by Chief Cody — something caught on an officer’s body camera and featured in Gruver’s lawsuit [PDF].

Chief Cody grabbed the phone out of Gruver’s hand when she told him she needed to call the paper’s co-owner, Eric Meyer (the son of the deceased Joan Meyer).

Also captured on body camera was Chief Cody’s call to Kari Newell, the aggrieved business owner who felt her driving records had been illegally accessed.

Kari Newell answered defendant Cody’s call, saying “hey.”

Chief Cody responded, “hey, honey, we can’t write anything, so…”

Kari Newell responded, “yeah, no, I understand…I just got a message from somebody at the hotel saying that the whole staff of the newspaper’s out on the sidewalk and all the computer equipment’s leaving the building.”

Chief Cody responded, “yeah, surprising how that works, isn’t it?”

Surprising? Not really. That’s just how it works when law enforcement officers or officials feel they’re above the law.

But ex-chief Cody isn’t above the law. However, he’s managed to buy himself out of this lawsuit, as Voice of America reports:

A former reporter for a weekly Kansas newspaper has agreed to accept $235,000 to settle part of her federal lawsuit over a police raid on the paper that made a small community the focus of a national debate over press freedoms.

The settlement removed the former police chief in Marion from the lawsuit filed by former Marion County Record reporter Deb Gruver, but it doesn’t apply to two other officials she sued over the raid: the Marion County sheriff and the county’s prosecutor. Gruver’s lawsuit is among five federal lawsuits filed over the raid against the city, the county and eight current or former elected officials or law enforcement officers.

Gruver’s lawsuit against Marion County Attorney Joel Ensey and Sheriff Jeff Soyez remains in force and it seems unlikely either of those will be able to exit the lawsuit without a settlement or a judgment in favor of Deb Gruver. The amended lawsuit (filed in late June of this year) prompted a pretty quick buyout for Cody and it contains plenty of new damaging information that shows just how deeply involved both the county attorney and county sheriff were involved with these unconstitutional raids.

While it would be nice to believe ex-chief Cody is paying out of his own pocket for this, the city and the city’s insurance company both refused to comment on the settlement, which suggests the town’s residents are actually on the hook for this one as officials seek to distance themselves from Chief Cody and his actions.

A town of 1,900 can’t possibly absorb the sort of monetary damage these actions have generated. And there’s a good chance Marion’s insurance company is going to step away from this as soon as it can, leaving residents in the unenviable position of either being at the mercy of an uninsured government or being asked to dig a little deeper in their pockets to cover the increased premiums.