TOPEKA — Kari Newell told investigators she agreed to delete text messages she exchanged with former Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody in part because she was worried her ex-husband would accuse the two of having an affair.
Court records released Tuesday reveal Newell’s explanation — and a clandestine court hearing that could allow their text messages to be kept secret.
Cody, who led an Aug. 11, 2023, police raid on journalists and a city councilwoman, faces a low-level felony charge for telling Newell after the raid to delete text messages between the two. The raid was based on the false assertion that the targets had committed identity theft by obtaining a copy of Newell’s drunk driving record, which is a public document. Newell had lashed out at the journalists and councilwoman during a public meeting four days before the raid.
Special prosecutors Barry Wilkerson and Marc Bennett excused police for targeting journalists in violation of federal and state laws for a crime that didn’t exist. But the prosecutors determined Cody’s directive to delete text messages amounts to obstruction of justice.
Typically, criminal charges are supported by evidence presented in a written affidavit. But Wilkerson instead presented evidence by having a Colorado Bureau of Investigation agent testify before District Judge Benjamin Sexton in a closed hearing Aug. 8. The maneuver allowed Wilkerson to show the judge a copy of the deleted text messages without making them part of the case file or subject to requests by news outlets for disclosure.
During the hearing, according a transcript released Tuesday, CBI agent John Zamora described his interview with Newell in December, as well as a report a KBI agent filed from an earlier interview.
Newell told investigators that Cody told her to delete their text messages because he was didn’t want anyone to “misconstrue anything.”
“They discussed, ‘Well, we don’t want people putting … dots together that weren’t there, based on maybe a smiley emoji or something like that.’ She thought there was pretty much nothing in there,” Zamora said.
But, he added, she was concerned her ex-husband would accuse her of having an affair with Cody.
Zamora said a review of Newell’s phone showed she had deleted their text messages sometime after the Aug. 11, 2023, raid and before Aug. 17, 2023, when they resumed texting. But Newell also had taken screenshots of some text messages and provided those to Zamora.
The transcript reveals Wilkerson presented an exhibit to the judge with 11 text messages. But court clerk Jan Helmer said in an email Tuesday that the court would not provide a copy of the exhibit because the judge returned the exhibit to Wilkerson.
Former Kansas Court of Appeals Judge Steve Leben, now a law professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, said it isn’t clear whether the text messages should be disclosed as part of the evidence supporting the charge. Leben said “it’s clear that the Legislature intended a norm of disclosure” when it created a path in 2014 for news outlets to request affidavits and sworn testimony, but the law doesn’t specifically address how exhibits should be handled.
Wilkerson, who told lawmakers in 2014 that affidavits should be kept secret and not used to “sell sensationalized news accounts,” didn’t immediately respond to an interview request Tuesday asking about the unusual Aug. 8 hearing.
The deleted text messages could provide a clearer picture of Cody’s motives for raiding the Marion County Record office, the home of newspaper owners Joan and Eric Meyer, and Councilwoman Ruth Herbel’s home.
Wilkerson told the court on Aug. 8 that he wasn’t requesting an arrest warrant for Cody, who Wilkerson believed to be living in Hawaii. A first appearance in the case is scheduled for Oct. 7.
This story was originally posted by the Kansas Reflector.
