Kansas reporter injured when cellphone seized during police raid of newsroom

Almost a year after police raids on the Marion County Record’s newsroom and co-publishers’ home, special prosecutors cleared reporters at the Kansas newspaper of any criminal activity. Their findings, released Aug. 5, 2024, refute claims by then-Police Chief Gideon Cody justifying the raids he spearheaded.

The raids were immediately condemned by press freedom organizations, which pointed to officers’ seizure of computers, reporting materials and a storage device, along with the personal cellphones of reporters Deb Gruver and Phyllis Zorn, as interference with “the Record’s First Amendment-protected newsgathering.”

Marion County Attorney Joel Ensey subsequently appointed district attorneys from two nearby counties to review the lead-up to and execution of the search warrants, according to a copy of the attorneys’ report reviewed by the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.

The search warrant — which Ensey withdrew five days after the raids, citing insufficient evidence — indicated that the raids were undertaken as part of an investigation into the Record’s alleged unlawful use of a computer and identity theft. Local restaurant owner Kari Newell had accused the paper of using illegal means to confirm that she had a prior DUI conviction and had driven without a license.

The paper reported that a source had contacted them with the information, and that Zorn verified the allegations through the Kansas Department of Revenue website.

Affidavits from Cody laying out his justification for the raids falsely maintained that Zorn could only have obtained the KDOR record illegally. “Downloading the document involved either impersonating the victim or lying about the reasons why the record was being sought,” Cody wrote.

But the special prosecutors found that KDOR records are accessible to the public without falsifying one’s identity or motives, and that an officer in the Marion Police Department who spoke with a KDOR representative before the raids reached a false conclusion, which he then shared with Cody, due to “confirmation bias, a hurried investigation or simply a misunderstanding of what the KDOR representative was trying to explain.”

In addition, body camera footage of the raid on the newsroom reviewed by the Record in October confirmed, according to the paper, that Marion police already knew that the information about Newell had originally come from a former friend of Newell’s, not the KDOR website, but nevertheless proceeded to confiscate not only the computer Zorn had used to access the site, but multiple other pieces of equipment as well.

The special prosecutors announced in their report that they intend to charge Cody, who resigned from the police chief position in October 2023, with obstruction of judicial process in Marion District Court, citing his request to Newell after the raids that she delete text messages between them.

Marion County Record Publisher Eric Meyer, Gruver and Zorn all filed federal lawsuits against city and county officials, including Cody, for constitutional violations during the raids. Gruver claimed that the raids and Cody’s confiscation of her phone were retaliation for her investigation into his alleged prior misconduct. Meyer claimed that the raid on the home he shared with his mother and co-publisher Joan Meyer led to her death from cardiac arrest a day later.

Gruver settled with Cody in June for $235,000; her claims against the sheriff and Ensey are still pending.

Meyer told The Associated Press that he was grateful the paper’s staff had been cleared of wrongdoing but was frustrated that no officials other than Cody would be charged with crimes related to the raids. “What I feel is going on here is that he’s been set up as the fall guy,” he said.

Freedom of the Press Foundation Director of Advocacy Seth Stern wrote that he welcomed the charges against Cody, but echoed Meyer that others involved in orchestrating the raids should be held accountable. Stern added: “Journalists are fully entitled to access government records to do their jobs, and raids of newsrooms based on legal theories that criminalize newsgathering are plainly against federal law.”

The Tracker is a project of FPF.

Former Marion County Record reporter Deb Gruver reached a $235,000 settlement on June 25, 2024, for claims against former Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody, part of her ongoing suit alleging constitutional rights violations during a raid of the newspaper’s offices, according to court records reviewed by the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker and reporting by the Record.

The agreement, under which the City of Marion will pay Gruver, also barred both from disclosing the settlement amount or publicly commenting on the case, the Record reported. The newspaper wrote that it obtained a copy of the agreement through a Kansas Open Records Act request, citing an attorney general opinion that confidentiality clauses violated the state statute.

Gruver’s separate claims against the sheriff and the county attorney, whom she added to the suit shortly before the settlement with Cody, are still pending. Gruver’s former colleagues, reporter Phyllis Zorn and Record co-owner Eric Meyer, are also suing the city and law enforcement officials involved in the raid. Cody remains a defendant in their suits, according to court records.

Cody spearheaded the August 2023 raid and while searching the paper’s offices seized Gruver’s cellphone from her, injuring her hand. Gruver filed her suit three weeks later, alleging that Cody was retaliating against her for investigating his alleged prior misconduct and had violated her First and Fourth Amendment rights.

Cody resigned in October 2023 several days after being suspended. Just before his resignation, the Record reported that body camera footage of the raid showed Cody reading files in Gruver’s desk drawer, even though Gruver was not mentioned in the warrant application for the raid.

Gruver resigned from the paper after viewing the footage, writing in a letter to the editor, “I no longer wanted to work in a town where the majority of ‘leaders’ clearly don’t respect the Fourth Estate or the U.S. Constitution,” the Record reported.

Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody, who spearheaded the August 2023 raid on the offices of the Marion County Record and the home of the Kansas newspaper’s co-owners, resigned on Oct. 2, 2023, several days after he was suspended, the Record reported.

Just prior to his resignation, on Sept. 30, the Record also reported that newly reviewed body camera footage captured during the raid showed Cody reading files in reporter Deb Gruver’s desk drawer, even though Gruver was not mentioned in the warrant application for the raid.

While reading the files, one of which included information on a confidential source in an investigation of the police chief, Cody is reported to have said, “Hmm. Keeping a personal file on me. I don’t care.”

Record Publisher Eric Meyer previously told The Kansas City Star that prior to the raid the weekly newspaper had been investigating Cody’s background and allegations of wrongdoing.

Gruver is currently suing Cody in federal court for violations of her First and Fourth Amendment rights, claiming that both the raid and Cody’s confiscation of her phone were retaliation for Gruver’s investigation into his alleged prior misconduct.

The footage also indicates other discrepancies between law enforcement’s actions during the raid and Cody’s stated reasons for undertaking it. According to the search warrant, the raid was part of an investigation into the Record’s alleged unlawful use of a computer and identity theft to obtain information about local restaurant owner Kari Newell’s prior DUI conviction and driving record.

The body camera footage reveals, however, that Marion police knew at the time how the paper had obtained the information — through a former friend of Newell’s.

The Record recounts how, in the recording, Cody tells reporter Phyllis Zorn that “we’re pretty confident we know that [the former friend] delivered it.” Zorn tells Cody which computer she used to view the document and then verify it via the state Department of Revenue website. Cody asks Zorn if her cellphone was involved in the document viewing or verification; Zorn says no.

Despite this, the Record pointed out, Cody did not stop at confiscating the computer Zorn had indicated. He directed the seizure of three of the Record’s computers and computers at the paper’s co-owners’ home, as well as Zorn’s and Gruver’s cellphones. At the same time, the paper said that the sole copy of the document in question, on a desk a few feet away from one of the confiscated computers, was left untouched.

In a recent filing responding to Gruver’s complaint, Cody claims that he and other law enforcement officers confiscated the newsroom’s computers and Zorn’s cellphone “only after hours of failed attempts by the deputy to secure data from the computers onsite [because] the wireless internet and other data was so slow to download onto the deputy’s equipment.” They decided, he said, that it would be faster “to merely take any equipment that was possibly involved in the illegal download back to the deputy’s office and search the equipment at his station.”

In his filing, Cody denied harboring any desire to retaliate against Gruver or having violated her rights.

The footage also shows Cody on the phone with Newell during the raids, informing her that there was information he could share with her but that he did not want to put it in writing in a text to her, the paper added.

Meanwhile, Gruver resigned from the paper after viewing the body camera footage, the Record reported. “I think watching [it] was a mistake for me,” she wrote in her resignation letter. “I need to do what’s best for my mental health, which isn’t the greatest at the moment.”

The Record added that Gruver said that “she no longer felt comfortable in Marion because some residents didn’t seem to appreciate the journalism she and the Record were attempting to provide.”

Zorn, too, suffered health consequences from the stress of the raid, the Record reported. And Meyer’s 98-year-old mother, Joan Meyer, a co-owner and correspondent for the newspaper, died from sudden cardiac arrest the day after the raid of her home. The Record attributed her death in part to the stress of the raid.

Marion County Record reporter Deb Gruver filed a civil suit in federal court against Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody on Aug. 30, 2023, for violations of her First and Fourth Amendment rights, according to court documents reviewed by the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.

Cody led the Aug. 11 raid on the Record’s newsroom, at one point “snatching [Gruver’s] phone out of her hand.” Gruver’s complaint points out that Cody’s warrant application for the raid did not mention either Gruver or her phone and that seizing it therefore “exceeded the scope of the warrant.”

The complaint describes Cody’s warrant application and the raid as “unreasonable and unlawful [and] evidence of his malicious intent.” The filing also claims that Gruver’s investigation into Cody’s alleged prior acts of misconduct for the newspaper had “sparked [his] desire for retaliation against her personally.”

Gruver has requested damages exceeding $75,000 as compensation for the “emotional distress, mental anguish and physical injury” she sustained during the raid. Gruver had earlier alleged on Facebook that her previously dislocated finger was reinjured.

“Although I brought this suit in my own name, I’m standing up for journalists across the country,” Gruver told the Kansas Reflector. “It is our constitutional right to do this job without fear of harassment or retribution, and our constitutional rights are always worth fighting for.”

Gruver’s attorney, Blake Shuart, who pointed to Gruver’s 35 years of journalism experience and her previous service as a board member of the Kansas Coalition for Open Government, added, “Gruver is not the one to target for a violation of fundamental constitutional rights. She will fight for herself and her fellow journalists.”