A former Kansas police chief who led a raid last year on a weekly newspaper has been charged with felony obstruction of justice and is accused of persuading a potential witness to withhold information from authorities when they later investigated his conduct.
The single charge against Gideon Cody, the former Marion police chief, alleges that he knowingly or intentionally influenced the witness to withhold information on the day of the raid of the Marion County Record and the home of its publisher or sometime within the following six days. The charge was filed on Monday in state district court in Marion county and is not more specific about Cody’s alleged conduct.
The raid sparked a national debate about press freedom focused on Marion, a town in Kansas of about 1,900 people set among rolling prairie hills. Also, newspaper publisher Eric Meyer’s mother, who co-owned the newspaper and lived with him, died the next day of a heart attack, and he blames the stress of the raid.
Meyer said last week that authorities appear to be making Cody the “fall guy” for the raid when numerous officials were involved. He said on Tuesday that he suspects the criminal case ultimately will be resolved through a plea bargain so that Cody will not have a trial that would more fully disclose details about the raid.
“We’re just being basic journalists here,” he said. “We want the whole story. We don’t want part of it.”
A report from two special prosecutors last week referenced text messages between Cody and a local business owner after the raid. The business owner has said that Cody asked her to delete text messages between them, fearing people could get the wrong idea about their relationship, which she said was professional and platonic.
The Associated Press left a message seeking comment at a possible cellphone number for Cody, and it was not immediately returned on Tuesday. Attorneys representing Cody in a federal lawsuit over the raid are not representing him in the criminal case and did not immediately know who was representing him.
Cody justified the 11 August 2023 raid by saying he had evidence that Meyer, the newspaper and one of its reporters, Phyllis Zorn, had committed identity theft or other computer crimes in verifying the authenticity of a copy of the business owner’s state driving record provided to the newspaper by an acquaintance. The business owner was seeking Marion city council approval for a liquor license and the record showed that she potentially had driven without a valid license for years. However, she later had her license reinstated.
The prosecutors’ report concluded that no crime was committed by Meyer, Zorn or the newspaper and that Cody reached an erroneous conclusion about their conduct because of a poor investigation. Zorn used the information she had to legally search an online state database using her own name.