Prosecutors plan to charge former Kansas police chief over his conduct following newspaper raid
Two special prosecutors said Monday that they plan to file a criminal obstruction of justice charge against a former central Kansas police chief over his conduct following a raid last year on his town’s newspaper.
In an lengthy report summarizing the findings of their investigation, the special prosecutors, Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett and Riley County Attorney Barry Wilkerson, note that the staff of the newspaper that was raided, the Marion County Record, committed no crimes.
It wasn’t clear whether they planned to charge former Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody with a felony or a misdemeanor, and either is possible. The prosecutors also hadn’t filed their criminal case as of Monday. It could be days before they file it because they were working with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, which stepped in at the request of its Kansas counterpart.
But the prosecutors concluded that they have probable cause to believe that Cody obstructed an official judicial process. They said two pages of a written statement from a local business owner in September 2023 were not turned over to investigators about six weeks after the raid. Cody had accused Meyer and Zorn of identity theft and other computer crimes related to the business owner’s driving record to get warrants for the raid.
