Newly discovered documents appear to clear Record
Staff writer
Special prosecutors still have not released reports on police raids Aug. 11 at the Record and two homes.
However, newly discovered documents, available to authorities mere days after the raid, appear to clear the Record of any wrongdoing.
Technically, the Record remains under investigation for allegations of identity theft because of its attempt to verify a document it received and ultimately decided not to use.
That document indicated that Kari Newell, owner of a restaurant and a coffee shop at the time, had driven illegally for more than a decade.
Two investigations were launched after the raid — one by Kansas Bureau of Investigation and one by Colorado Bureau of Investigation.
Neither the KBI report nor the CBI report, which appears to have focused on potential wrongdoing by authorities, has been released.
However, some documents concerning KBI’s investigation have been provided to the Record’s attorneys in a legal process known as discovery. A revised federal court complaint filed Friday by the Record cites an email exchange shortly after the raid, between KBI agent Todd Leeds and Ted E. Smith, general counsel of the Kansas Department of Revenue, which maintains driving records.
At the time, Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody still was claiming that his raid would be exonerated. He and the sheriff’s department were preparing arrest warrants based on the raid.
According to the Record’s complaint, Leeds asked Smith a “very straightforward question”:
“Is it a violation of the law for someone to access another’s Kansas driver’s license information via the State KDOR public website. (yes or no)”
Smith’s answer was no, which he underlined for emphasis.
Smith went on to say that he had asked KDOR staff to look up any inquiries made about Newell’s driving record.
According to the Record’s complaint, he states that Record reporter Phyllis Zorn “identifying herself as such, accessed our free service and requested non-personal information,” just as the Record had contended before the raid was conducted.
Smith even included a handout explaining how the public could access such information.
The handout, dated just three days after the raid, featured “dummy information” for a hypothetical driver named “Scooby Doo.”
Smith provided his response, clearing Zorn, just 39 minutes after Leeds had requested it, according to the Record’s complaint.
Smith would have provided the same information, the complaint states, to Cody, Sheriff Jeff Soyez, Detective Aaron Christner, or Officer Zach Hudlin “if they had only conducted the most basic of an investigation.”
“But these co-conspirators were not interested in truth,” the complaint states, “for their conspiracy had an agenda: to get the Marion County Record and (city council member) Ruth Herbel.
“As a result, the so-called ‘investigators’ intentionally did not seek to determine whether the actions of the Record staff were legal or illegal.
“They failed to do this even though there was no urgency in their investigation; both Herbel and (Record publisher) Eric Meyer had admitted to authorities ... that they possessed the letter from the Kansas Department of Revenue. As such, there was no legitimate fear that either Meyer or Herbel would destroy evidence of their receipt of the letter.”
The account of correspondence between KBI and KDOR appears in a section of the Record’s complaint labeled “What a real investigation looks like.”
What happened instead, according to previously released documents, was that Hudlin called someone at KDOR, whose name and title he did not get, and asked whether anyone had accessed Newell’s driving record.
He reported to Cody that Zorn had done so, but he failed to point out that the access had occurred days after the document in question already had been sent to the Record and Herbel by a source.
Cody’s contention at the time was that the Record had provided the document to Herbel.
Other portions of the Record’s revised complaint challenge assertions by attorneys representing the city’s insurance company that the city should be immune from responsibility for actions of its employees or officials.
Marion City Council’s appointment of Hudlin to replace Cody as acting chief is a key element of that challenge.
The complaint notes that the city knew that Hudlin had exceeded search warrant authorization by rifling through the desk of a reporter not involved in obtaining the document and pointing out confidential investigative files she had assembled questioning Cody’s fitness to serve as Marion chief.
The council nonetheless promoted him, “ratifying” Cody and Hudlin’s illegal search, the complaint states.
The complaint portrays David Mayfield, Marion’s mayor at the time and to this day an employee of the sheriff’s department, at the top of a conspiracy to use the raid as a pretext for ousting Herbel and silencing the Record over their criticism of Mayfield’s actions and potential abuses of power.
The full 164-page revised complaint is available here (4.4MB PDF).
Earlier this month, former Record reporter Deb Gruver, whose research on Cody was illegally accessed by Hudlin and Cody, settled a lawsuit against only Cody, who injured her when he ripped her personal cell phone from her hand during the raid and said afterward that doing so “made my day. “Her suit against Soyez and Ensey as well as the Record’s suit and three other suits, by Herbel, Zorn, and Record business manager Cheri Bentz, continue.
The Record also has notified all parties of the potential for additional suits in state court, including one for wrongful death involving Record co-owner Joan Meyer, 98.
Despite having warned officers that she might die from stress, she was pronounced dead just 24 hours after spending 2½ hours under police surveillance while as many as seven officers raided her home and seized her computer.
The Record’s complaint states that authorities demonstrated “callous disregard” for her rights by forcing her to wait for Cody to arrive to search her home and by Hudlin suggesting that she be arrested for supposedly threatening officers with her walker.
Others raiding her home included State Fire Investigator Chris Mercer, whose after-action report wrongly characterized her as senile.
The seventh officer at her home, sheriff’s Investigator Steve Janzen, declined to enter her house and resigned from the sheriff’s department shortly thereafter. So did another raider, sheriff’s Sergeant Matt Regier.