Law enforcement officers in Kansas raided the home and office of a newspaper owner, prompting a sharp rebuke from a press freedom group and raising constitutional questions far beyond the small city in the state.
The paper’s co-owner and publisher, Eric Meyer, believes Friday’s raid in Marion – about 60 miles north of Wichita – was prompted by a story published Wednesday about a local business owner, while authorities countered they are investigating what they called “identity theft” in a search warrant.
Computers, cell phones, and other materials were seized during the raid at the Marion County Record, Meyer confirmed to CNN.
At the time of the raid, Meyer said he was at the home of his 98-year-old mother, who died less than 24 hours later, he told CNN by phone Saturday evening. Police took Meyer’s phone, a computer router and an old laptop he hadn’t used in two weeks from the home, Meyer said.
Officials conducted the raid after Marion County Court Magistrate Judge Laura Viar signed a search warrant Friday morning, which alleges violations of identity theft and “unlawful acts concerning computers.”
The story behind the story
Earlier this month, Meyer said he was at Kari’s Kitchen, a coffee shop Newell operates, for a public meeting event with US Representative Jake LaTurner, a Republican who represents the area. While it was a public meet-and-greet event, Meyer said he and his reporter, Phyllis Zorn, were asked to leave.
“I was standing in line waiting to get a drink at the coffee shop where we were and the police chief came up to us and said you’ve been asked to leave by the coffee shop owner,” Meyer said. “She said we don’t want the media in here, so they threw us out.”
CNN has reached out to LaTurner’s office about the situation.
Meyer said Zorn then received a tip about Newell allegedly driving without a valid driver’s license after a traffic offense in 2008.
Newell confirmed to CNN that she had asked Meyer and his reporter to leave during the public meet-and-greet event with Rep. LaTurner because she believes the newspaper “has a long-standing reputation for twisting and contorting comments within our community.”
“When they came into the establishment, I quietly and politely asked them to exit,” Newell said. “I didn’t feel that their constituents needed to be exposed to any risk of being misquoted.”
Newell said the Marion County Record unlawfully used her credentials to get information that was only available to law enforcement, private investigators and insurance agencies. “Not only did they have information that was illegal for them to obtain in the manner in which they did, but they sent it out as well,” she added.
The Marion County Record published the article “strictly out of malice and retribution for me asking him to exit my establishment,” she says.
Newell was out of state when she learned of Friday’s raid, she says, and tells CNN she was “flabbergasted” and “didn’t know that was coming.”
Meyer said he drove down to the office where law enforcement officials seized a file server, a backup drive for a file server, Meyer’s computer and the computers of two other reporters.
“I’ve never seen anything like this, not in America,” Meyer said. “This was an atomic flyswatter. They wanted to swat us, and they tried to do so.”
“Our problem is, we don’t have any of our logs of advertising, the ads that were prepared, and things that were ordered,” Meyer said as he expressed his concerns for not being able to publish his weekly newspaper on time.
Two reporters – Zorn and Deb Gruver – whose computers were seized also had their phones taken away, according to Meyer.
“As far as I can see, the entirety of law enforcement in Marion County was involved in this,” Meyer said. He explained all four employees from the Marion Police Department, including the police chief, came.
The search warrant identified a list of items law enforcement officials were allowed to seize, including “documents and records pertaining to Kari Newell,” the business owner who was the subject of the story, Meyer said.
The warrant also specifically targeted ownership of computers and devices or internet service accounts used to “participate in the identify theft of Kari Newell,” he added.
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