Kansas
Judge who authorized Kansas newspaper raid escapes discipline with secret conflicting explanation • Kansas Reflector
TOPEKA — The magistrate who authorized last year’s police raid on the Marion County Record escaped discipline from a state panel by making claims that contradict statements in federal lawsuits about how the search warrants arrived in front of her and whether the police chief swore they were true before she signed them.
Magistrate Judge Laura Viar’s secret explanation, obtained by Kansas Reflector, adds a new layer of confusion and mystery to how law enforcement were able to carry out the search and seizure of journalists’ computers and cellphones without regard for state and federal laws that prohibit such police action. It also raises concerns about the low standards set for judges by the Kansas Commission on Judicial Conduct.
Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody prepared search warrant applications with the assistance of a sheriff’s deputy that accused newspaper reporter Phyllis Zorn of committing identity theft by looking up a driving record in a Kansas Department of Revenue public database. Publisher and editor Eric Meyer and Councilwoman Ruth Herbel were targeted for having a copy of the record.
In court documents, Cody said he emailed the search warrant applications to County Attorney Joel Ensey, whose office delivered them to the judge. Ensey, in an email he sent to himself a day after the Aug. 11, 2023, raid, said he printed off the applications without reading them and had an office manager deliver them to the judge. That email has been attached to court filings.
A Topeka woman in April filed a complaint against Viar with the Kansas Commission on Judicial Conduct after reading Meyer’s lawsuit against Cody and others. The lawsuit questions whether the search warrants were legal if Cody never appeared before the judge.
In Viar’s response to the disciplinary panel, she wrote that District Judge Susan Robson approached her with an unknown law enforcement officer on the morning of the raid. According to Viar, Robson introduced the officer as Cody and said she couldn’t sign the warrants “because of her history with the city,” which isn’t explained. Cody led the judges to believe that Kansas Bureau of Investigation agents, who had assisted Cody in the investigation, were prepared to join the raid, even though they weren’t, Viar wrote.
“I can say with 100% certainty that I did not approve the search warrants and return them to Chief Cody until I had verified under oath his signature and the truthfulness of the statements in the supporting affidavits,” Viar wrote.
The disciplinary panel dismissed the complaint against Viar after receiving her response, according to a letter obtained by Kansas Reflector. It isn’t clear whether the panel, which operates in secrecy by Kansas Supreme Court rule, independently investigated the accuracy of Viar’s account.
The panel members who dismissed the complaint against Viar were Grant County District Judge Bradley Ambrosier; Kansas City, Kansas, attorney Tonda Jones Hill; Rosemary Kolich, of the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth; Kansas Court of Appeals Judge Thomas Malone; and Johnson County Judge Thomas Kelly Ryan.
Viar didn’t respond to an email inquiry asking her to reconcile her account with the ones provided by Cody and Ensey.
The commission directed questions to Lisa Taylor, spokeswoman for the Office of Judicial Administration, who said, “I have no information related to this matter.”
Jared McClain, an attorney with the Virginia-based Institute for Justice who represents Herbel in her federal lawsuit over the raid, said he was surprised that Viar’s account differs “so drastically” from the police chief and county attorney.
“Those are completely different versions of the truth,” McClain said. “And I don’t see what Cody or Ensey could have to gain by telling their version of the story, because their version of the story is worse for them. But Viar’s is better for everyone. So if that were the truth, why did the other guys spend a year saying something different?”
McClain also said it was “obvious” there was no probable cause for the searches, because the police theory of a crime dealt with accessing a public record on a public website.
The same disciplinary panel previously dismissed a complaint against Viar that was based on the lack of evidence to support a crime, the federal and state laws that should have prevented the judge from signing the documents, and the violation of constitutional freedoms.
Emily Bradbury, executive director of the Kansas Press Association, said she was disappointed the disciplinary panel had let Viar off the hook.
“It’s another level of accountability that will never happen,” Bradbury said.
Zorn, the reporter whose work became a pretext for the raid, said she was upset that police “came in with such a lousy excuse for a warrant.”
“This thing was political. And I wasn’t the target. I was actually the pawn,” Zorn said. “They seized upon something and used that as their excuse. And I will say this: I was raised by a small town cop who spent 18 and three-quarters years with highway patrol. He has been dead for four years. There’s no doubt in my mind he is still spinning in his grave.”
In the last four years, the University of Arkansas has gotten the better of the Kansas Jayhawks in postseason play.
In 2022, the Razorbacks defeated KU football 55-53 in a triple-overtime thriller in Memphis during the Liberty Bowl. A year later, No. 8 seed Arkansas upset No. 1 seed KU (and reigning college basketball champions) in the NCAA Tournament by a single point (72-71) to end Kansas basketball’s chances of a repeat. In 2025, Arkansas pulled off another upset in the Big Dance when the No. 10 seed Razorbacks defeated No. 7 KU 79-72 to advance to the Sweet 16.
Needless to say, there were plenty of Jayhawk fans hoping for revenge this weekend when Arkansas was announced as the No. 2 seed in the Lawrence Regional – and KU baseball delivered in a big way with a sweep over the Razorbacks to reach the program’s first-ever Super Regionals appearance.
KU came from behind in both games to earn a 5-3 victory on Saturday and a 13-10 win on Sunday night at Hoglund Ballpark.
On Saturday, Arkansas took an early 1-0 lead in the top of the second before a Tyson LeBlanc RBI tied things up in the bottom of the third. Each team scored two in the fifth and remained deadlocked until KU pulled away late with a Dairel Osoria run in the seventh and a solo home run by Augusto Mungarrieta in the eighth to seal the win.
After Arkansas beat Northeastern in a narrow 10-9 contest on Sunday afternoon, KU and Arkansas met again on Sunday evening in a highly anticipated matchup that saw a lot of offensive firepower on display.
The Razorbacks jumped out to a 5-0 lead through three innings before KU had a monster performance in the top of the fourth. Osoria led things off with a solo home run before Brady Ballinger hit an RBI single to score Jordan Bach and Max Soliz Jr. had an RBI single to score Dylan Schlotterback. Then LeBlanc showed his All-American talents once again in a big moment by hitting a three-run home run to deep center field to put the Jayhawks ahead 6-5.
From there, KU would never relinquish the lead after scoring two runs in the fifth inning and three in the sixth. The Jayhawks tacked on two more in the top of the eighth to give the team its 13th score of the game.
The Jayhawks are now 45-16 on the season – tied for the most wins in a season in program history with the 1993 team that reached the College World Series.
KU will now move on to the Super Regionals which start Friday, June 5. If Oklahoma beats Georgia Tech tomorrow, KU will get the chance to host as they did this week. If Georgia Tech wins, the Jayhawks will head to Atlanta with a spot in the College World Series on the line.
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If the motto to live by is to get 1 hour of movement a day, the Parkinson’s community in Kansas City is exceeding it.
Bob Zipse has been fighting Parkinson’s for 10 years. He said the diagnosis hit him hard.
Leawood’s Parkinson’s Exercise and Wellness Center expands services as diagnoses climb
“I was super depressed. I mean, I was in a chair. Did you want to move? Look around, just horrible. Because there’s no resources. Where do I go with the time?”
Zipse said the disease can be an isolating experience.
KSHB
“Parkinson’s, I say, is a very lonely, lonely disease. Either people don’t want to deal with you, or you’re embarrassing.”
He found the Parkinson’s Exercise and Wellness Center at his lowest point. Now, he sees people around him pushing past their limits.
“You see people out here, they’re in the mid-70s, they’re doing push-ups, sit-ups, lifting weights. I mean, it’s amazing, really,” Zipse said. “In here, we’re all the same.”
Sarissa Curry founded the center after seeing the power of healing through exercise and recognizing that diagnosis rates were increasing. An aging population and younger diagnoses are among the biggest factors driving that trend.
Kansas consistently ranks as having one of the highest Parkinson’s disease diagnoses and mortality rates in the United States, second only to Nebraska. According to the Parkinson’s Foundation, an estimated 20,000 people in the Kansas City metro alone are living with the disease.
“You see your neurologist once every six months to a year, and you see a physical therapist maybe a couple of months out of the year. Community-based programs are here every day to support this community,” Curry said.
Curry said the warning signs of rising Parkinson’s rates have been visible for years.
“They have been predicting this increase in Parkinson’s for many years. They were able to see the writing on the wall, they were able to see how the population was aging, and they knew that this was coming. We paid attention.”
She expanded the center to serve as an all-encompassing resource for people like Zipse.
KSHB
“I’d hate to wager what I would have been like. Life would have stopped for me, I think. This at least gives me hope, gives me some work towards and see some benefit of it,” Zipse said.
The PEWC will host a ribbon cutting on Wednesday, June 3, at 3:30 p.m. The community is invited to attend to learn more about the center’s services and the disease as incidence rates continue to rise each year.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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