Reporter sues Kansas town and various officials over police raid on her newspaper
Officers raided the newsroom as well as the publisher’s home in August 2023.
TOPEKA, Kansas — A reporter for a weekly Kansas newspaper that police raided last year filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against its hometown and local officials, saying the raid caused her physical and mental health problems.
Marion County Record reporter Phyllis Zorn is seeking $950,000 in damages from the city of Marion, its former mayor, its former police chief, its current interim police chief, the Marion County Commission, the county sheriff and a former sheriff’s deputy. The lawsuit calls them “co-conspirators” who deprived her of press and speech freedoms and the protection from unreasonable police searches guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.
Officers raided the newspaper’s offices on Aug. 11, 2023, as well as the home of Publisher Eric Meyer, seizing equipment and personal cellphones. Then-Marion Chief Gideon Cody said he was investigating whether the newspaper committed identity theft or other crimes in accessing a local restaurant owner’s state driving record.
But the lawsuit alleges Cody was “infuriated” that the newspaper was investigating his background before he became Marion’s chief in May 2023. It also said Zorn was on Cody’s “enemies list” for laughing off a suggestion that they start a rival paper together.
The raid put Marion, a town of about 1,900 residents about 150 miles southwest of Kansas City, at the center of a national debate over press freedom. Legal experts said it likely violated state or federal law, and Cody resigned in early October. Meyer’s 98-year-old-mother, who lived with him, died the day after the raid, and he attributes her death to stress caused by it.
Zorn’s federal lawsuit is the second over the raid. Former Record reporter Deb Gruver sued Cody less than three weeks after the raid, seeking $75,000, and the parties are scheduled to meet with a mediator in April, according to court records. Zorn’s attorney is Randy Rathbun, a former top federal prosecutor for Kansas.
“I’m certainly not anti-law enforcement because that’s what I did, but this kind of stuff just drives me crazy,” Rathbun said in an interview. “I know law enforcement, how they should react, and … this is not it.”
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Reporter sues Kansas town and various officials over police raid on her newspaper https://t.co/aQypG5jSaI
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