Restaurateur at center of Kansas newspaper battle bursts into tears as she breaks her silence to reveal hate mail she’s got for accusing reporter of accessing information about her DUI illegally

The restaurant owner whose fight with a Kansas newspaper sparked a viral raid has broken her silence by revealing the hate mail she received blaming her for the death of the publication’s 98-year-old owner.

Kari Newell, 46, wept as she shared the hate she has received since her intervention at a Marion City Council meeting on Aug. 7 led to the raid, which some believe is the cause of the death of co-owner Joan Meyer of Marion County Record.

Speaking to The Kansas City Star, Newell shared her belief that Phyllis Zorn, a reporter for the newspaper, had illegally accessed information on her 2018 drunkenness charge, which revealed she had been driving without a valid license for 15 years.

“I probably got 600 or 700 messages saying I have blood on my hands, I have to go to prison for manslaughter, charged with wrongful death, that I killed that poor woman,” Newell told the local news station.

“I’m probably approaching 5,000 hate mail.”

While the council would discuss whether Newell should get a two-year liquor license for one of her restaurants, the editors of the Marion County Record had decided not to pursue a story about her drunkenness.

Still, Newell went after the paper at the meeting, accusing a council member of obtaining the information and sharing it “negligently and maliciously” with others, claiming she would notify Marion County’s attorney.

Four days later, Police Chief Gideon Cody raided the Marion County Record newsroom. The councilor’s and the Meyers’ homes were also raided. Joan Meyer died the next day.

Since then, people have called her “Hitler,” “fascist,” and “the devil,” she added, showing strangers texts.

Newell said she was forced to shut down responses and online reservations for her restaurant Chef’s Plate at Parlor 1886, which is located in the Historic Elgin Hotel.

But Newell remains unashamed and convinced that it was the newspaper that was wrong, and that she did not know that the police would raid any of the homes or the newspaper. However, the Kansas Department of Revenue has said the information was public.

Surprisingly, Eric Meyer, co-owner of the paper and Joan’s son, agrees that Newell isn’t the villain people should be focusing on.

“She’s a pawn,” he told The Kansas City Star. “I think she was a convenient excuse used by other people to get us. I think she’s an idiot for that.’

Before the Aug. 11 raid, Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody wrote in an affidavit that Marion County Record reporter Phyllis Zorn was impersonating Newell or lying about her reasoning to retrieve the data.

Cody wrote in the affidavit that the Treasury Department told him those who downloaded the information were Record reporter Zorn and someone who went by the name “Kari Newell.”

He wrote that he contacted Newell, who said “someone obviously stole her identity.”

But Zorn, publisher and editor Eric Meyer and the newspaper’s lawyer said no laws had been broken when they visited a public state website for information on the restaurant owner.

Police seized computers, mobile phones and a router from the newspaper during the raid, but all items were released on Wednesday after the prosecutor concluded there was not enough evidence to justify the action.

The paper listed Newell’s driver’s license number and date of birth because a source provided them unsolicited, Meyer said.

The tip about Newell’s drunk driving was sent to Zorn by a woman named Pam Maag.

Maag said she received the data from Kari’s estranged husband, Ryan Newell.

Some legal experts believe the Aug. 11 raid violated a federal privacy law that protects journalists from being searched through their newsrooms.

While others say it violated a Kansas law that makes it more difficult to force reporters and editors to disclose their sources or unpublished material.

Cody defended the raid shortly after it occurred in a Facebook post, saying that the federal law protecting journalists from newsroom searches specifically makes an exception for “when there is reason to believe that the journalist is participating in the underlying misconduct .’

The Record received strong support from other news organizations and media groups after the raid.

Meyer said it has attracted at least 4,000 more subscribers, enough to double the size of its press circulation, though many of the new subscriptions are digital.

He blamed the stress of the raid on his mother Joan’s August 12 death. Her funeral service was Saturday.

She collapsed and died “mid-sentence” after refusing to eat because she was in complete shock from the raid.

Before Joan died, she told The Wichita Eagle about the raids, “These are Hitler tactics and something has to be done.”

Meyer said when he woke his mother up to offer her breakfast, she died mid-sentence.

“I am disturbed – I chose that word carefully – with everyone speaking out about the raids on our office, but what disturbs me the most is that a 98-year-old woman spent her last day on earth feeling like she was being attacked by bullies who had invaded her house. ‘

He did not give more details about the paper’s investigation into the police chief, but said: “I really don’t think it would be advisable to say what we were investigating other than to label the allegations serious.

On Tuesday, it emerged that Cody was also under investigation by the newspaper over allegations of sexual misconduct.

Cody became Chief of the Marion County Police Department in late April, after leaving the Kansas City Police Department over sexual misconduct allegations.