Kansas county agrees to pay out $3M for brazen newspaper raid that resulted in owner's death

TOPEKA — The county involved in a small-town Kansas newspaper raid in 2023 will pay a cumulative $3 million to three journalists and a city councilor.

In two of the four agreements, the Marion County Sheriff’s Office also crafted a statement admitting regret.

“The Sheriff’s 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 Police Department’s search warrants on their homes and the Marion County Record. This likely would not have happened if established law had been reviewed and applied prior to the execution of the warrants,” the statement reads.

Marion County’s board of commissioners approved agreements Monday with Eric Meyer, the owner and editor of the Marion County Record, and Ruth Herbel, the Marion city councilor whose home was raided in tandem with the newspaper office, and two other journalists. The agreements coincide with consent judgments expected to be submitted in their federal cases against the county.

The county was a secondary player in the raids, in Meyer’s eyes, but the agreements could play a part in the paper’s ongoing cases against the city.

“Everybody involved in this is 100% convinced we are going to go to trial with the city,” Meyer said. “This will make that easier in some regard.”

The county’s agreements with Deb Gruver and Phyllis Zorn, local journalists whose lives were upended by the raids, are more akin to settlements and don’t include admissions of regret.

The county agreed to pay Meyer $1.5 million, Herbel $650,000, Zorn $600,000, and Gruver $250,000, according to copies of the agreements obtained by Kansas Reflector.

Insurance covers most of those funds, but the county must pay Meyer $50,000.

In another lawsuit against former Marion police chief Gideon Cody, who is also facing criminal charges, Gruver settled earlier this year for $235,000.

According to Meyer, Zorn has retired from her position at the Marion County Record, effective immediately.

Monday’s deals settle the county’s obligations within four federal lawsuits against the city of Marion and Marion County governments and officials in the wake of the raids. Five cases were consolidated into a single federal lawsuit, and the four agreements give the county and the sheriff’s office immunity from any future legal action related to the Aug. 11, 2023, searches and seizures at the Marion County Record, Meyer’s home and Herbel’s home.

The county agreed to make available Marion County Sheriff Jeff Soyez, Detective Aaron Christner, and Undersheriff Larry Starkey for official interviews, which could be used in other legal disputes. Previously, the cases were stalled, preventing interviews from taking place.

Claims against the city of Marion, its police department and other officials, including former Mayor David Mayfield and former police chief Gideon Cody, are not involved in the agreements.