Latest on KS newspaper raid: Prosecutor’s ties to liquor license; council won’t comment

It’s been one week since a widely-condemned police raid on the Marion County Record, a local newspaper in a small city in central Kansas, put a national spotlight on press freedom — and the town’s leaders.

Since then, the Marion Police Department, whose new chief Gideon Cody suddenly left his long career at the Kansas City Police Department with a checkered past, has handed the reins to the Kansas Bureau of Investigation. Marion County’s top prosecutor called for the things taken during the raid be returned to the Record, citing “insufficient evidence.” And the newspaper put out its latest issue.

On Friday The Star reported Marion County Attorney Joel Ensey, the prosecutor who will decide whether to bring criminal charges in the investigation, is also the brother-in-law of the business owner whose expiring liquor license helped kick off the firestorm.

The Marion City Council, meeting for the first time since, says elected leaders would not address the ongoing matter during its upcoming session on Monday evening. And The Star looked into how the Record could possibly get in legal trouble for looking at public records in the first place.

Here’s are some of the latest headlines from The Star:

Prosecutor’s family ties

Ensey, Marion County’s top prosecutor, said Wednesday there was “insufficient evidence” to support the search warrant, issued by Judge Laura Viar, and returned the seized computers to the Record — a highly rare outcome in a criminal investigation.

But Ensey still has to decide whether or not to bring charges against anyone at the conclusion of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation’s investigation. The KBI took the lead Monday and plans to submit findings to his office.

The Star has found that Ensey has a connection to Kari Newell, owner of the Chef’s Plate at Parlour 1886 restaurant, whose complaints about the Record led to the criminal investigation in the first place. His brother and sister-in-law own Marion’s Historic Elgin Hotel, where Newell’s restaurant is located.

At least one Kansas lawyer thinks that might be enough for Ensey to recuse himself from the case. Wichita-based attorney John Stang, a past president of the Kansas Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, told The Star he “would not be surprised” if that happens.

Read more: Marion prosecutor’s sister-in-law holds expiring liquor license that helped ignite furor

‘COUNCIL WILL NOT COMMENT’

Forty-seven exclamation points.

That’s how emphatically the Marion City Council agenda stated, in all caps, that there would be no talk of the criminal investigation concerning the Marion County Record.

The five-member city government body was set to have its first meeting since the weekly newspaper, long the talk of the town, became part of a national conversation. Mayor David Mayfield, who has been openly critical of the Record, will not attend the meeting.

“COUNCIL WILL NOT COMMENT ON THE ONGOING CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION AT THIS MEETING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” the agenda says.

It is the only time Mayfield says he’s missed a meeting in the past 3 ½ years. The mayor said in a letter his absence, which he apologized for, was due to a long-planned family vacation out of state.

Read more: Marion City Council ‘WILL NOT COMMENT’ on raid of newspaper at meeting, agenda says

Who is Kari Newell?

As a small business owner in Marion, Newell’s history of drunk driving had, at best, a remote chance of being news outside her town. But her allegations that Record broke the law by accessing online information about her 2008 drunken driving arrest have put her in the spotlight, too.

For her part, Newell has said little publicly about the episode. The Star was unable to reach Newell for comment Thursday.

Newell has quickly come to loom large on Third Street, in downtown Marion.

First came the Chef’s Plate at Parlour 1886 restaurant, housed inside the Historic Elgin Hotel. Newell took over as restaurant owner and lead chef in January, according to The Hillsboro Free Press. In June, she opened a second spot, Kari’s Kitchen, a coffee shop and cafe that Newell opened in June, directly across the street.

Newell told a KSN-TV reporter in July that she was happy with her investments.

“I have fallen in love with Marion,” she said. “I’ve been here about 10 years, and being a part of this community does feel like family.”

Read more: Who is Kari Newell, restaurant owner at center of Kansas newspaper raid? What we know

Illegal to look at public records?

At the center of the Marion County Record investigation is the allegation that its staff were doing something criminal. Namely: “identity theft” and “unlawful acts concerning computers.”

Eric Meyer, the Record’s publisher, says those allegations apparently have to do with a tip the paper received over social media. That news tip was a document containing driving record information on Kari Newell, the local restaurant owner.

The Record reporter punched that information into a publicly available database maintained by the Kansas Department of Revenue, which oversees driver licensure, to verify its authenticity. It confirmed Newell’s license had been suspended for years due to past DUIs.

“Those are all a matter of public record,” Meyer said.

Kansas law defines identity theft as taking someone’s personal information for the purpose of committing some type of fraud or misrepresenting them with the goal of “economic or bodily harm.” The criminal statute concerning computers is reserved for those who knowingly and without permission access a computer system for a malicious purpose, including fraud and destruction of electronic content.

Paul Cramm, an Overland Park criminal defense attorney, told The Star simply accessing a public record or knowing someone’s personal information does not rise to the level of criminality.

“Accessing a record to know what it says is not the same thing as using the information contained in that record to perpetrate some sort of a fraud,” Cramm said. “If they don’t use the information to try to trick someone into thinking something that isn’t true about someone’s identity, I don’t know how they call that identity theft.”

Read more: Did Marion newspaper break the law by checking record on state website? What we know

CPJ wants ‘thorough investigation’

The Committee to Protect Journalists is calling for a “thorough investigation” into the raid, saying the Marion Police Department and Judge Viar, who authorized the search warrant, should be the subjects of scrutiny.

CPJ is an international nonprofit that promotes press freedom and works to defend journalists against repression across the globe. National program coordinator Katherine Jacobsen said the search and seizure of items that unfolded at the newspaper’s office on Aug. 11 was a violation of state and federal laws that protect journalists.

“At CPJ, we don’t really have a record of anything like this happening in the United States on this scale,” Jacobsen said.

Read more: Committee to Protect Journalists calls for investigation after Marion newspaper raid

Marion County Record Search Warrant by The Kansas City Star on Scribd

The Star’s Jonathan Shorman, Katie Moore, Natalie Wallington, and Anna Spoerre contributed to this report.