Kansas town will pay $850K to reporter over 2023 raid

A former reporter for the Marion County Record will receive $850,000 from the city of Marion in a settlement, after Phyllis Zorn filed suit from a 2023 raid of the newspaper office.

By

State News

August 14, 2026 - 1:33 PM

Copies of the Aug. 16, 2023, edition of the Marion County Record rest on a countertop in the newspaper office. Staffers pulled an all-nighter to get the newspaper out after their equipment was seized by law enforcement. Photo by Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A small Kansas town has agreed to pay $850,000 to a former reporter at its weekly newspaper to end her federal lawsuit over a police raid of the paper’s offices in 2023 that ignited a national furor over press freedom.

Now-retired Marion County Record reporter Phyllis Zorn said in her lawsuit that the raid violated press freedoms and protections from unreasonable law enforcement searches guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. She also said it almost immediately led to health problems, causing the return of potentially life-threatening seizures that…

Related
November 11, 2025
August 6, 2024
August 31, 2023
August 21, 2023