15 August 2023 , 20:55
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The police chief who defended the decision to raid a small-town newspaper was being investigated by its reporters over claims of alleged sexual misconduct, reports suggest.
The Marion Police Department are investigating the Marion County Record over allegations that it illegally obtained personal information. The police department, headed up by chief Gideon Cody, raided the publisher over allegations they illegally obtained person information about a local business owner.
The newspaper in Kansas struggled to publish its next edition on Monday (14 August) due to a police raid of its office where computers and cellphones were confiscated.
The newspaper claims that it had been investigating Gideon, 54, after receiving an “outpouring of calls” claiming he had retired from his last police post to avoid demotion over sexual misconduct allegations. He denies the allegations.
The information about the claims were contained on one of the computers seized during the raid on the newspaper’s office, newspaper publisher and co-owner Eric Meyer said.
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Front entrance to the Marion County Sheriff's department (Mark Reinstein/MediaPunch/IPx)Brian Karman, Gideon’s business partner and colleague of more than two decades, said he knew of no sexual misconduct allegations against Gideon while working for the Kansas City police.
Friday's raids have been widely condemned by press freedom watchdogs as a blatant violation of the U.S. Constitution’s protection for a free press. Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly called the raids “concerning.”
An attorney for the newspaper deemed the searches and seizures illegal and said the police department's action “offends the constitutional protections the founding fathers gave the free press.” The Society of Professional Journalists pledged $20,000 toward the newspaper’s legal defense.
Newspaper publisher and co-owner Eric Meyer said he believes the newspaper’s dogged coverage of local politics and Police Chief Gideon Gideon’s record are the main reason for the raids.
The newspaper’s attorney, Bernie Rhodes of Kansas City, sent a letter to the Gideon demanding that police not review any information on the computers or cellphones seized, saying the raid was illegal and the computers contain identities of confidential sources. He also accuses Gideon of misinterpreting laws on privacy and wrongly applying them to news reporters.
“I can assure you that the Record will take every step to obtain relief for the damages your heavy-handed actions have already caused my client,” Rhodes said.
Gideon defended the raid on the newsroom, saying it was conducted legally, while press freedom and civil rights organizations have said that police overstepped their authority.
The police searches also appear to have been prompted by a complaint from a local restaurant owner, Kari Newell, who accused the newspaper of invading her privacy after it obtained copies of her driving record, including a 2008 drunken driving conviction.
Kari Newell says the newspaper targeted her after she ordered newspaper boss Eric Meyer and a reporter out of her restaurant earlier this month during a political event.
Eric Meyer says a source gave the newspaper the information unsolicited and that reporters verified it through public online records. The paper eventually decided not to run a story, but it did report on Kari Newell's complaints about the newspaper’s investigation at a city council meeting, where she publicly confirmed she’d had a DUI conviction and that she drove after her license was suspended.
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The search warrant names Kari Newell as a victim and lists the underlying reasons for the searches as suspicion of identity theft and “unlawful acts concerning computers.”
Eric Meyer also blames the raid at his home for stressing his 98-year-old mother enough to cause her death on Saturday. Joan Meyer was the newspaper’s co-owner.
Jared Smith, a lifelong Marion resident, said Monday that he supports the police raid. Smith accused the newspaper of ruining his wife’s day spa business opened only a year ago by digging into her past and discovering she had appeared nude in a magazine years before. That fact was repeated in the Record more than 20 times over a six-month period, Smith said.
“The newspaper is supposed to be something that, yes, reports the news. But it’s also a community newspaper,” he said. “It’s not, ‘How can I slam this community and drive people away?' ”