{"id":4289,"date":"2025-11-12T09:15:15","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T09:15:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/12\/kansas-county-to-pay-3-million-after-law-enforcement-raid-on-a-small-town-newspaper\/"},"modified":"2025-11-12T09:15:15","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T09:15:15","slug":"kansas-county-to-pay-3-million-after-law-enforcement-raid-on-a-small-town-newspaper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/12\/kansas-county-to-pay-3-million-after-law-enforcement-raid-on-a-small-town-newspaper\/","title":{"rendered":"Kansas county to pay $3 million after law enforcement raid on a small-town newspaper"},"content":{"rendered":"

TOPEKA, Kan. \u2014 A rural Kansas county has agreed to pay a little more than $3 million and apologize over a law enforcement raid on a small-town weekly newspaper<\/a> in August 2023 that sparked an outcry over press freedom, the paper\u2019s editor said Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Marion County was among multiple defendants in five federal lawsuits filed by the company that publishes the Marion County Record, its publisher, the estate of his late mother Joan Meyer, the paper\u2019s co-owner, employees of the paper and a former Marion City Council member whose home also was raided.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Eric Meyer, the paper\u2019s editor and publisher, told The Associated Press he is hoping the size of the payment is large enough to discourage similar actions against news organizations in the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal isn\u2019t to get the money. The money is symbolic,\u201d Meyer said. \u201cThe press has basically been under assault.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sheriff Jeff Soyez issued an apology that mentioned the publisher and his late mother Joan Meyer by name, along with former council member Ruth Herbel and her husband.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Sheriff\u2019s Office wishes to express its sincere regrets to Eric and Joan Meyer and Ruth and Ronald Herbel for its participation in the drafting and execution of the Marion County Police Department\u2019s search warrants on their homes and the Marion County Record,\u201d the sheriff\u2019s statement said.<\/p>\n

The Marion County Commission approved the agreement Monday after discussing it in private for 15 minutes.<\/p>\n

The raid triggered a national debate about press freedom<\/a> focused on Marion, a town of about 1,900 people set among rolling prairie hills some 150 miles southwest of Kansas City, Missouri. Also, Meyer\u2019s mother, who co-owned the newspaper and lived with him, died the day after the raid of a heart attack, which he blamed on the stress of the raid.<\/p>\n

A search warrant tied the raid \u2014 which was led by Marion\u2019s police chief \u2014 to a dispute between the newspaper and a local restaurant owner who had accused the Marion County Record of invading her privacy and illegally accessing information about her and her driving record. Meyer has said believed the newspaper\u2019s aggressive coverage of local politics and issues played a role and that his newsroom had been examining the police chief\u2019s past work history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TOPEKA, Kan. \u2014 A rural Kansas county has agreed to pay a little more than $3 million and apologize over a law enforcement raid on a small-town weekly newspaper in August 2023 that sparked an outcry over press freedom, the paper\u2019s editor said Tuesday. Marion County was among multiple defendants in five federal lawsuits filed <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":4290,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4289","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4289\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}