MARION – Former Marion County record reporter Deb Gruver has received a $235,000 settlement from The City of Marion’s insurance carrier connected to an illegal search and seizure of her cell phone and newspaper property during a police raid that made press freedom shock waves nationwide last summer.
Gruver’s was one of three federal lawsuits filed against the city by Record staff, and a fourth filed by city council member Ruth Herbel, whose home was raided the same day by Marion police on a warrant signed by former policy Gideon Cody and granted by District Magistrate Judge Laura Viar the same day. In all, five lawsuits were filed under federal privacy, First Amendment and search and seizure protection laws, including one from publisher Eric Meyer that also claims wrongful death in the passing of his mother the day after her home was raided.
Gruver quit the newspaper in the months that followed the raid.
City officials pressed police officers, who got Viar’s signature on search warrants, to conduct the raids alleging the newspaper had committed identity fraud in searching a public online database. A resident provided a tip that a local restaurateur seeing a liquor license for a catering expansion actually had no drivers license – after having lost it years ago as a result of a DUI. The newspaper didn’t use the information in a story, but notified city officials, who were considering the permit.
Meyer’s 98 year-old mother died the day after officers spent two hours in a search of her home in which they confiscated various electronic and Internet equipment.
In a Facebook post, Gruver did not disclose how much of the settlement was paid in fees to her attorney, Blake Shuart, though attorneys typically receive a third to half of a damages settlement if the plaintiff has paid them no money up front for representation.
Gruver said she plans to start a journalism scholarship with part of her proceeds.
A huge public outpouring of support for the newspaper after word spread of its predicament resulted in more than a doubling of the paper’s circulation, from around 2,000 before the raid to some 5,500 afterwards, Eric Meyer told a public radio interviewer.
Dane Hicks is a graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism and the United States Marine Corps Officer Candidate School at Quantico, VA. He is the author of novels "The Skinning Tree" and "A Whisper For Help." As publisher of the Anderson County Review in Garnett, KS., he is a recipient of the Kansas Press Association's Boyd Community Service Award as well as more than 60 awards for excellence in news, editorial and photography.
