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

TOPEKA, Kan. -- A agrarian Kansas region has agreed to wage a small much than $3 cardinal and apologize implicit a instrumentality enforcement raid connected a small-town play newspaper successful August 2023 that sparked an outcry implicit property freedom.

Marion County was among aggregate defendants successful 5 national lawsuits filed by the Marion County Record's genitor company, the paper's publisher, paper employees, a erstwhile Marion City Council subordinate whose location besides was raided, and the property of the publisher's 98-year-old mother, the paper's co-owner, who died the time aft the raid. An lawyer for the newspaper, Bernie Rhodes, released a transcript of the five-page signed statement Tuesday.

Eric Meyer, the paper's exertion and publisher, told The Associated Press helium is hoping the size of the outgo is ample capable to discourage akin actions against quality organizations successful the future. Legal claims against the metropolis and metropolis officials person not been settled, and Meyer said helium believes they volition look a larger judgement though helium doesn't expect those claims to beryllium resolved for immoderate time.

“The extremity isn’t to get the money. The wealth is symbolic,” Meyer said. “The property has fundamentally been nether assault.”

The raid triggered a nationalist statement astir press freedom focused connected Marion, a municipality of astir 1,900 radical acceptable among rolling prairie hills astir 150 miles (240 kilometers) southwest of Kansas City, Missouri. Meyer’s 98-year-old mother, Joan, lived with him and died of a bosom onslaught that helium blamed connected the accent of the raid.

Three days aft the raid, the section authoritative said determination wasn't capable grounds to warrant it. Experts said Marion's constabulary main astatine the time, Gideon Cody, was connected legally shaky crushed erstwhile helium ordered the raid, and a erstwhile apical national authoritative for Kansas suggested that it mightiness person been a transgression usurpation of civilian rights, saying: “I’d astir apt person the FBI starting to look.”

Two peculiar prosecutors who reviewed the raid and its aftermath said astir a twelvemonth aboriginal that the Record had committed nary crimes earlier Cody led the raid, that the warrants signed by a justice contained inaccurate accusation from an “inadequate investigation” and the searches were not legally justified. Cody resigned arsenic constabulary chief successful October 2023.

Cody is scheduled to spell to proceedings successful February successful Marion County connected a felony charge of interfering with a judicial process, accused by the 2 peculiar prosecutors of persuading a imaginable witnesser to withhold accusation from authorities erstwhile they aboriginal investigated his conduct. He had pleaded not blameworthy and did not respond to a substance connection Tuesday seeking remark astir the county's agreement.

Attorneys for the metropolis and the region and the region head did not instantly respond to messages seeking comment.

Sheriff Jeff Soyez issued an apology that mentioned the Meyers by name, on with erstwhile assembly subordinate Ruth Herbel and her husband.

“The Sheriff’s Office wishes to explicit its sincere regrets to Eric and Joan Meyer and Ruth and Ronald Herbel for its information successful the drafting and execution of the Marion County Police Department’s hunt warrants connected their homes and the Marion County Record," the sheriff's connection said.

The Marion County Commission approved the statement Monday aft discussing it successful backstage for 15 minutes.

A hunt warrant tied the raid -- which was led by Marion’s constabulary main -- to a quality betwixt the paper and a section edifice proprietor who had accused the Marion County Record of invading her privateness and illegally accessing accusation astir her and her driving record.

Meyer has said helium believed the newspaper’s assertive sum of section authorities and issues played a relation and that his newsroom had been examining the constabulary chief’s past enactment history.