Judge

Judge Who Signed Gestapo Raid Warrant Potentially Biased

In a surprising twist to the Gestapo-style raid on a Kansas publisher, the Judge has a history of DUI charges which may have influenced her decision to grant an incredibly dubious warrant. Details on that are still developing, so it’s not clear exactly how her personal life played into the decision. The revelation is certainly raising eyebrows.

Judge had own DUI history

The judge who signed off on the warrant allowing Marion Police Department in Marion, Kansas, to conduct what amounts to a Gestapo raid on a local newspaper publisher may have been part of the story herself. The Honorable Laura Viar might not be as worthy of respect as her title suggests.

The raid was allegedly related to claims the Marion County Record “illegally obtained DUI information about a local business owner.” It seems that Viar has two of those on her own record.

In the wake of unnecessarily heavy handed police action, 98-year-old co-owner of the paper, Joan Meyer, who was “a veteran newswoman” died the next day. Everyone is calling her death a direct result of the illegal intimidation.

That makes questions regarding judicial impartiality even more serious. It turns out that “in 2012, the Eighth Judicial District Magistrate judge reportedly completed a program after her own DUI arrest in Coffey County — and then was busted seven months later for a DUI in Morris County.

One of the things which isn’t clear is whether anyone knew about her driving record before she became a judge. At the time, she was county attorney and using the name Laura Allen.

She happened to be driving “a judge’s vehicle when she went off the road and hit a shed near the Council Grove football field.” At the time, she “also had a suspended license.” It’s not good for a county prosecutor to thumb her nose at the law like that. It’s even worse when she’s on the bench.

Warrant since withdrawn

Judge Viar never should have issued the search warrant in the first place and it has “since been withdrawn.” The reason Joel Ensey used on Wednesday, August 16, was “insufficient evidence.” That’s a total understatement. It was a total fishing expedition, simply so the chief could get his hands on the names of the rats who revealed his sexual abuse past at his previous job. He did. He has to give it all back but now it’s too late.

The way Ensley put it, the warrant did not “establish a legally sufficient nexus between this alleged crime and the places searched and the items seized.” Not only that, as publisher Eric Meyer pointed out in court, the “probable cause affidavit was filed three days after a search warrant was served.

When Chief Gideon Cody dropped in on Judge Viar, he told her he needed the warrant because “a local businesswoman, Kari Newell, accused the paper of illegally obtaining document pertaining to her DUI incident, which would have interrupted her application for a liquor license.

That information allegedly came from Newell’s ex-husband. The paper not only had no intention of running a story based on it, they notified police that they had been handed the information in an apparently improper way. They wanted the husband investigated.

Instead of simply asking for the records, which would have been complied with, what the chief really wanted was the records on his own story. That’s why he carried off “the newspaper’s computers, cell phones, and reporting material.” After injuring a staffer by ripping the phone from her hand, he went to the publishers home to scare Joan Meyer to death and illegally seize more equipment.

He might have told the judge he knew about her record too, and the paper might be writing about her next. If Cody was really after the Newell documents, why did he leave them sitting on Eric’s desk as he picked up the CPU sitting right next to them? They were out in the open in plain sight. “It was sitting on my desk next to the computer they seized. They didn’t take it,” he relates.

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