Text Messages, Emails Show KBI Had Full Knowledge Of Raid On Kansas Newspaper’s Office

Legal Issues

from the ohhhhh-THAT-small-town-paper-raid dept

On August 11, the Marion County PD — with the assistance of the Kansas Department of Revenue, the county sheriff’s office, and (for some fucking reason) the local fire marshal — raided the office of the Marion County Record, along with the home of its co-owner, 98-year-old Joan Meyer.

The raid was prompted by the very expansive reading of two state laws, one involving identity fraud and the other involving computer crimes. The first response from nearly everyone but Police Chief Gideon Cody was a denial of knowledge, much less involvement.

But as reporters kept digging into the story, the denials — starting with the county attorney Joel Ensey’s claim of innocence when he asked a court to quash the warrants — began to unravel. The DA claimed he’d never seen the warrants prior to their service. But an email exposed this lie, showing Chief Cody had informed of his plans to search the paper’s office, as well as sent him copies of the warrants he planned to deploy.

The Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI) strode onto the scene, presenting itself as a force of good, here to get to the bottom of this pile of constitutional violations.

It, too, claimed it had nothing to do with the raids.

Attorney General Kris Kobach, who has oversight of the KBI, told reporters on Aug. 16 that the KBI “was not notified of the searches prior to their taking place.”

That statement is, at best, misinformed. Perhaps Kobach just didn’t know. But the KBI sure did. It, too, had been informed of Chief Cody’s unconstitutional plans. Not only that, it apparently approved of them, as Jessica McMaster reports for KSHB:

Text messages obtained by the KSHB 41 I-Team reveal Gideon Cody claimed the Kansas Bureau of Investigation was “100 percent behind” him one day after the raids on Marion County Record and two homes.

The text messages, provided by a source and independently verified by KSHB 41, are between Cody and Joel Ensey, Marion County Attorney, who revoked Cody’s warrants within days following the raids.

More evidence of KBI’s involvement and prior knowledge. And more evidence of the county attorney’s prior knowledge and direct involvement.

Now, it could have been that Chief Cody was putting words in the mouth of the KBI. But if so, he was doing it constantly. A text sent to county attorney Ensey on August 9, two days before the raids, said “KBI will be lead in the investigation.” One day after the raids, Chief Cody sent Ensey another text referring to KBI’s apparent support of his actions.

The final message from Cody on the subject of KBI and the newspaper raid stated KBI was taking its own route with the investigation. Not an investigation of the raids themselves, mind you.

Cody sent another response: “They want to use an independent lab not affiliated with [the] government for forensics, and they appear to be taking this case over. I will let you know.”

So, the staties wanted to do their own digging into the seized electronics using an “independent lab,” whatever that means in this context. The KBI never got a chance to do it. The court ordered all devices and data returned to paper and its employees before they were ever in the hands of the KBI.

Additional emails obtained by KSHB contain even more evidence of foreknowledge and approval, if not direct involvement.

One day before the raids, Todd Leeds, KBI special agent, sent an email to a Marion police officer. He wrote, “Did you guys execute this today?”

The police officer responded, “No. My understanding is that the county attorney wasn’t in the office today.”

The subject of that email is, “Additional SW for Eric Meyer’s Residence.”

Given these facts, it would make zero sense for KBI to be allowed to engage in an investigation of the Marion County PD and its actions. It has already let everyone know what it thinks about what happened here and seems unlikely to discover anything damning when doing so would mean damning itself.

Hopefully, this latest bit of news means the KBI will be stepping away from this entirely.

Multiple sources confirm an outside law enforcement agency has joined Kansas Bureau of Investigation’s probe into the events surrounding the raid on the Marion County Record newspaper.

Eric Meyer, publisher of Marion County Record, Deb Gruver, former reporter of the Record, and Ruth Herbel, vice mayor of Marion, told the KSHB 41 I-Team an agent with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation has reached out to them about the case.

According to those who spoke to KSHB after speaking to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation agent, CBI is definitely not digging into the actions of the newspaper or its employees. It wants to know why this investigation was initiated by the Marion County PD and why it decided the best plan of action was an all-day assault on constitutional rights.

Hopefully, the CBI will expand its investigation to include the KBI, which is certainly far from blameless. This debacle — every small part of it — needs to be dragged out into the sunlight. The last thing the KBI should be allowed to do is creep back into the shadows while everyone’s paying attention to an outside agency and its apparently far more competent investigative work.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, eric meyer, gideon cody, joan meyer, journalism, kansas, kbi, marion county, marion county pd
Companies: marion county record