Prosecutors reviewing nearly 10,000 pages to weigh charges after Kansas newspaper raid

Prosecutors in Kansas are reviewing nearly 10,000 pages of documents generated by the investigation into the raid on the newspaper in Marion.

The August 11 search at The Marion County Record prompted concerns about press freedom from across the country.

The Kansas Bureau of Investigation took the lead in the investigation shortly after the raid, but then tapped the Colorado Bureau of Investigation to take over.

Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett and Riley County Prosecutor Barry Wilkerson were appointed as special prosecutors on the case.

Last month, they went to Denver where they received “a detailed synopsis of the investigation,” Bennett said in an email.

Rob Low, a spokesman for the CBI, said the prosecutors asked for some additional investigative steps, which are being done now.

The CBI has received more investigative documents which will be forwarded to them, Bennett said Wednesday.

He and Wilkerson were in the process of reviewing the investigation which “already appears to run to nearly ten thousand pages.”

“When that review is complete, our findings will be made public,” Bennett said.

It’s unclear what charges prosecutors may be considering and Bennett said they do not plan on making any additional comments until their assessment is finished.

Gideon Cody, then the Marion police chief, obtained search warrants for the newspaper, the home of the newspaper’s owners Joan and Eric Meyer, and the home of Marion city councilwoman Ruth Herbel.

Joan Meyer, 98, died the next day after suffering a heart attack.

The search warrants were withdrawn within days amid widespread condemnation of Cody, who resigned weeks later.

Before the searches, the Record had been investigating Cody’s tenure at the Kansas City Police Department, where he was facing possible disciplinary action for allegedly making sexist comments. In applying for the search warrants, Cody wrote that he was investigating alleged identity theft of local restaurant owner Kari Newell after a reporter looked up her driver’s license records – which are public records – on a state database.

Two of The Record’s reporters and the paper’s office manager have filed lawsuits. Last month, a fourth lawsuit was filed by Eric Meyer and the newspaper, who claimed that the police raid was an “intolerable violation of their constitutional rights.”

This story was originally published May 1, 2024 at 1:49 PM.

Katie Moore

The Kansas City Star

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Katie Moore was an enterprise and accountability reporter for The Star. She covered justice issues, including policing, prison conditions and the death penalty. She is a University of Kansas graduate and began her career as a reporter in 2015 in her hometown of Topeka, Kansas.