Following a police raid on a local newspaper last year, two special prosecutors announced on Monday that they plan to charge the former Central Kansas police chief with obstruction of justice over his conduct.
In a 124-page report, prosecutors Marc Bennett and Barry Wilkerson highlighted that the staff at the Marion County Record had committed no crimes before Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody organized a raid on its offices and the home of its publisher.
Bennett and Wilkerson said police warrants signed by a judge to allow the searches included false information due to an "inadequate investigation". They stated the searches were not legally justified, according to The Associated Press.
Police body camera footage captured the 2023 raid on publisher Eric Meyer's home and shows his 98-year-old mother, Joan Meyer, extremely upset as she yelled at officers to, "Get out of my house!"
She co-owned the Marion County Record, resided with her son, and died of a heart attack the next afternoon.
Prosecutors found no evidence that officers "believed they were posing a risk to Mrs. Meyer's life."
However, they accuse Cody of obstructing an official judicial process in the weeks following the raid.
"Small-town familiarity explains but does not excuse the inadequate investigation that gave rise to the search warrant applications in this matter," prosecutors said in their report.
The state's attorney general appointed Bennett and Wilkerson to the case after the previous Marion County prosecutor also faced allegations concerning the search warrants.
The raid launched a national debate about press freedom centered on Marion, a town of roughly 1,900 people.
"The raid itself was criminal," said Seth Stern, director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, in a statement when asked whether Cody should face other charges in addition to obstruction of justice.
"And Cody is far from the only one at fault here."
Meyer's revealed that he's grateful that the investigation led by the prosecutors cleared the newspaper's staff of any crimes, but questioned why it had taken a whole year.
Furthermore, he expressed frustration over the fact that Cody is the only official who is expected to face criminal prosecution.
"What I feel is going on here is that he's been set up as the fall guy," Meyer said.
Federal lawsuits against the city of Marion and current as well as former local officials, including Cody, have been filed by Meyer and three staffers.
The warrants authorizing the police raid accused Meyer and reporter Phyllis Zorn of identity theft and several computer crimes after they accessed the driving record of a local business owner who was seeking a liquor license at the time.
The report also noted text messages exchanged between Cody and the business owner following the raid, with the owner alleging Cody asked her to delete the texts between them, fearing the public would misconstrue their relationship, which she states was professional and platonic.
Cody resigned as chief last October.
