Kansas county to pay $3 million after law enforcement raid on a small-town newspaper

TOPEKA, Kan. — A rural Kansas county has agreed to pay a little more than $3 million and apologize over a law enforcement raid on a small-town weekly newspaper in August 2023 that sparked an outcry over press freedom, the paper’s editor said Tuesday

TOPEKA, Kan. — A rural Kansas county has agreed to pay a little more than $3 million and apologize over a law enforcement raid on a small-town weekly newspaper in August 2023 that sparked an outcry over press freedom, the paper’s editor said Tuesday.

Marion County was among multiple defendants in five federal lawsuits filed by the company that publishes the Marion County Record, its publisher, the estate of his late mother Joan Meyer, the paper’s co-owner, employees of the paper and a former Marion City Council member whose home also was raided.

Eric Meyer, the paper’s editor and publisher, told The Associated Press he is hoping the size of the payment is large enough to discourage similar actions against news organizations in the future.

“The goal isn’t to get the money. The money is symbolic,” Meyer said. “The press has basically been under assault.”

Sheriff Jeff Soyez issued an apology that mentioned the publisher and his late mother Joan Meyer by name, along with former council member Ruth Herbel and her husband.