Lawyers for embattled Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens are demanding that prosecutors share exculpatory information after the woman who has accused him of blackmailing her admitted she couldn’t recall if Greitens took pictures of her with his smartphone.
Greitens earlier this year was indicted on felony invasion of privacy, accused by his former mistress of blackmailing her to keep their affair quiet. But in a deposition, the woman, who has not been publicly named, conceded that she could not recall whether Greitens took revealing pictures of her with his smartphone as part of the alleged blackmail.
In a copy of the seven-page motion, obtained by the Washington Examiner, Greitens’ mistress said she might have imagined the governor’s actions in a “dream.” Greitens had not yet been elected governor at the time of their sexual affair. In the motion, his former mistress is referred to as “K.S.”
“Apparently recognizing the difficulty this testimony presented for the charges, the Assistant Circuit Attorney later asked K.S. ‘did you see what you believed to be a phone?’ K.S. answered: ‘… I haven’t talked about it because I don’t know if it’s because I’m remembering it through a dream or I — I’m not sure, but yes, I feel like I saw it after that happened, but I haven’t spoken about it because of that,” the motion said. “She later re-confirmed, however, that she could not testify under oath that she saw a phone.”
The motion from Greitens’ lawyers said prosecutors withheld that evidence, and demanded that prosecutors bring forward other exculpatory evidence they might have.
Greitens is a former Navy SEAL and was a political outsider in Missouri when he was elected governor in 2016 in his first bid for elected office. The charismatic politician, with a national following and well-heeled donor network, was immediately tabbed a rising Republican star and discussed as a future presidential candidate.
That image came crashing down early this year when a hairdresser revealed that she had an affair with the governor before he was elected, which Greitens acknowledged. But the woman further alleged that the Republican engaged in sexual misconduct and blackmailed her to keep the affair quiet.
Related to those charges, Greitens in February was indicted on charges of first-degree felony invasion of privacy in a Missouri circuit court. The governor has been defiant, resisting calls to resign, including from some Republicans. Greitens and his legal team have denied all charges of wrongdoing and labeled the legal action against him a witch hunt.
Meanwhile, Greitens’ wife Sheena claims she was stalked by the ex-husband of the governor’s former mistress.
Sheena Greitens leveled the charge in a letter to a special committee of the Missouri Legislature formed to investigate accusations of sexual impropriety brought against the governor by the former mistress, a hairdresser whom he had an acknowledged affair with before he was elected in 2016.
