Ex-Kansas police chief who led raid on Marion newspaper to make first appearance in court

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The former Kansas police chief who led a raid on a newspaper last summer will make his first court appearance on Monday afternoon in Marion.

Gideon Cody — hired as chief of police in Marion after leaving the Kansas City Police Department under a cloud of possible discipline and demotion — faces one count of interference with the judicial process, a felony with a possible punishment of seven to 23 months in prison.

Monday’s arraignment is likely to include a reading of the charge against Cody and any conditions of his release before trial. He will also have an opportunity to enter a plea.

Cody’s criminal charge stems from his actions after the raids, when he is alleged to have told restaurateur Kari Newell to delete text messages between the two of them. Newell deleted all messages prior to Aug. 17 — six days after the raids, court records show.

Earlier, Newell filed a criminal complaint against the Marion County Record and Vice Mayor Ruth Herbel after Cody, former Marion Mayor David Mayfield and City Council member Zach Collett contacted her to tell her that Herbel knew about a past DUI on Newell’s driving record and intended to use that information to try to deny her a liquor license, according to civil lawsuits filed in the aftermath of the raids.

Cody told Newell that someone had stolen her identity to obtain her driving record. That later became basis of Cody’s search warrant application for the newspaper and the private residences of Herbel and Marion County Record editor and owner Eric Meyer.

It turned out that the Marion County Record and Herbel had legally obtained the driving records, which had been posted on Facebook. A Record reporter later verified the information through a publicly available state website.

Marion County Attorney Joel Ensey, after receiving advice from the special prosecutors who would later decide to file charges against Cody, later withdrew the warrants, saying insufficient evidence existed to establish a “legally sufficient nexus between this alleged crime and the places searched and the items seized.” Ensey had been involved in conversations about Cody’s investigation into the Record and Herbel, and an employee in his office delivered the warrants to Magistrate Judge Laura Viar for her signature.

But Ensey has since said he was out of the office at the time and that his understanding was that the KBI was taking over the investigation from Cody. Ensey, whose family members owned the hotel where Newell operated a restaurant, has handed the case over to the special prosecutors, district attorneys from Sedgwick and Riley counties.

Several Marion County Record employees and Herbel have filed federal lawsuits against the city of Marion, Cody and other officials involved in the raids. Cody’s charge is the only criminal case filed in relation to the raid or its aftermath.

Cody’s lawyers have signaled he plans to fight the charge. Late last month, they filed a motion to dismiss the charges. No hearing date has been filed for that motion, and the state has not yet filed a response.

Cody’s legal team — Wichita lawyers Brian L. White and Sal Intagliata — argues that special prosecutors Barry Wilkerson and Marc Bennett failed to establish probable cause with their unusual decision to charge Cody through the verbal testimony of a law enforcement officer from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation instead of by written complaint or indictment. The CBI Agent John Zamora’s 10-page sworn testimony failed to state how Cody violated Kansas law, they argue in the motion to dismiss.

At some point between Aug. 11, the day of the raids, and Aug. 17 of last year, Cody told Newell to delete their text messages “because he was trying to protect her” because he didn’t want “anyone to misconstrue anything” about their messages, according to testimony by an agent with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. Newell later clarified to Zamora that she shared Cody’s concerns because she worried her ex-husband might try to accuse her of having an affair with Cody.

Zamora was able to obtain the missing text messages, and they were introduced as an exhibit at the hearing but have not been released to the public or, apparently, to Cody’s legal defense, according to the motion to dismiss.

“At most, Agent Zamora’s testimony supports a finding that Mr. Cody instructed Ms. Newell to delete electronic communications between Ms. Newell (on her phone only) and himself sometime between August 11 and August 17, 2023,” Cody’s motion to dismiss says. “Even if true, this evidence does not support a crime. For example, Ms. Newell conceded the concern with the text messages was that her ex-husband may have accused the two of having an affair. In other words, the identified concern was unrelated to any criminal proceeding or investigation.”