Lawyer Says Cops Secretly Copied Kansas Newspaper Data After Raid

Original reporting: Sheriff’s office agrees to destroy evidence obtained from raid on Kansas newspaper (Kansas Reflector)

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Source: Daily Beast

'INEXCUSABLE'

Lawyer Says Cops Secretly Copied Kansas Newspaper Data After Raid

“This access is illegal,” the Marion County Record's lawyer fumed.

Pilar Melendez
Senior National Reporter
Updated Aug. 24, 2023 5:56PM EDT Published Aug. 24, 2023 2:19PM EDT

A lawyer for the Marion County Record alleges that Kansas authorities involved in the raid of the newspaper secretly copied data from at least one of its computers—and failed to hand it over with other seized evidence.

Attorney Bernie Rhodes told The Daily Beast that the Marion County Sheriff's Office “confirmed the fact they copied 17 Gigs of data from the newsroom computer system—and they still have it.” The retention of the data was first reported by the Kansas Reflector.

The computer system was among a slew of property taken during the Aug. 11 raid at the Record, the home of publisher Eric Meyer, and the home of Vice Mayor Ruth Herbel.

Amid national outcry, Marion County Attorney Joel Ensey last week withdrew the search warrant that led to the raids after concluding that “insufficient evidence exists to establish a legally sufficient nexus between the alleged crime and the places searched and the items seized.” Affidavits obtained by The Daily Beast on Sunday confirmed that the raids stemmed from an investigation into identity theft after a confidential source leaked sensitive documents to one of the Record reporters about local restaurateur Kari Newell.

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Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/marion-county-record-lawyer-claims-sheriffs-office-secretly-copied-data-after-raid