The deal Governor Eric Greitens’ defense attorneys made with prosecutors to get criminal charges against him dropped involved seven key conditions.
Gov. Eric Greitens
Greitens never made a plea bargain as has been reported in some media outlets, but instead agreed to a “stipulation for dismissal”.
Among other things, the St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s office will dismiss the charges when it receives notification of the governor’s resignation from the secretary of state, and at that point, the same charges cannot be refiled.
The document stipulates that the circuit attorney realizes the trial could be expensive with no guaranteed outcome and that both parties agree that resolving the issue quickly is in the best interest of justice.
It further requires Greitens’ lawyers to drop their request to disqualify Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner from the proceeding and calls on them to release her, her office and any hired consultants from civil liability. The defense had accused private investigator William Tisaby of perjury and Gardner of allowing the offense in a previous case.
Two of the seven stipulations for dismissal have been sealed. It’s not known if there are conditions within those stipulations that would call for them to be unsealed.
Greitens leaves office at 5 p.m. today after his attorneys approached Gardner’s office over the weekend to propose a deal in exchange for his resignation.
The stipulation for dismissal effectively closes out the felony computer tampering charge Greitens faced for allegedly obtaining a donor list from his former charity without consent and using it for campaign purposes.
The case had been continued as a grand jury was still investigating the charge.
The stipulation doesn’t affect Judge Rex Burlison’s ability to penalize Circuit Attorney Gardner. Burlison determined sanctions were in order following missteps in an earlier case that led to the perjury accusation and confusion over the whereabouts of a key video.
In that case, Greitens was alleged to have taken and transmitted a nonconsensual photo of a woman in a state of undress and then to have threatened to distribute the photo if the woman talked about the encounter.
The charge of felony invasion of privacy was dropped when Judge Burlison ruled that Circuit Attorney Gardner could be called as a witness by the defense.
The case was moved to Kansas City where a special prosecutor could still refile the charge against Greitens. A court date has been set there for July 2nd.
A lawsuit against Greitens over his office’s use of an app that erases text messages is still unresolved.
Also, documents from his dark money non-profit organization have been ordered by a judge to be turned over to a House committee that’s been investigating him. But since he’s resigning from office, the committee has canceled all of its hearings. There’s been no formal decision on whether to drop the legislative probe into Greitens.
