$235,000 settlement reached in police raid on Kansas newspaper

Nearly a year after authorities raided The Marion County Record, a Kansas weekly newspaper, a former reporter has settled for $235,000 as part of a lawsuit she filed over the search, which sparked a national debate over press freedom.

The settlement, dated June 25, ended a lawsuit filed by former reporter Deb Gruver against Gideon Cody, who resigned as Marion city police chief in October amid mounting pressure.

Ms. Gruver’s lawsuit alleged that Mr. Cody injured her hand when he forcibly took her personal cell phone during the raid. Bodycam footage corroborated Ms. Gruver’s story, according to Eric Meyer, the newspaper’s publisher.

Mr Meyer said on Saturday that The bodycam audio recorded Mr. Cody “saying it made his day.”

Ms. Gruver, who left the newspaper last fall, said in a letter to the editor that she “no longer wanted to work in a city where the majority of ‘leaders’ clearly have no respect for the Fourth Estate or the U.S. Constitution.” The record reported.

On August 11, 2023, local police and county sheriff’s deputies raided The Record’s offices and the homes of a city councilman and Mr. Meyer. The newsroom raid sparked outrage and a national debate about First Amendment rights.

About an hour before the raid, a search warrant was executed, and officers searched the newsroom, opening drawers and seizing computers, cellphones and other equipment from The Record’s office. Seven law enforcement officers spent more than two hours at Mr. Meyer’s home, where his mother was at the time, he said.

Authorities said the search was part of an investigation into how a document detailing a local restaurant owner’s efforts to get her driver’s license back was obtained by the newspaper. Authorities said the acquisition could have constituted identity theft and other crimes.

No article had been published that included the government documents. According to The Record, the document was obtained from a confidential source.

Less than a week after the raid, Marion County Chief Prosecutor Joel Ensey ordered authorities to return the seized devices, saying there was insufficient evidence to justify the searches.

Two days after the raids, Joan Meyer, the 98-year-old mother of the newspaper’s publisher and co-owner, died, partly from the stress caused by the raid on her home, Meyer said.

The raid also came days after The Record questioned Mr. Cody about his departure from the Kansas City Police Department after he was accused of making sexist and offensive comments.

Ms. Gruver “was the reporter who got the initial information about the police chief that we didn’t publish at the time,” Mr. Meyer said. “The material for that was in her desk, and they searched her desk during the raid.”

Another portion of her lawsuit against the county sheriff, Jeff Soyez, and Mr. Ensey is still pending. Lawsuits filed by four other newspaper employees are also pending.

The city’s insurance company will pay the settlement in Ms. Gruver’s case. City officials and Mr. Cody could not immediately be reached for comment Saturday.

One of the lawsuits, filed by Mr. Meyer, is on behalf of the paper’s parent company and Ms. Meyer’s estate. The lawsuits accuse local officials of trying to silence the paper and say the raids contributed to Ms. Meyer’s death.

“One of the things we’ve seen from this is that the people who have responded to us have come from all across the political spectrum,” Mr. Meyer said. “There’s not a lot of things in this world that bring Democrats and Republicans together right now.”