The defense team representing Missouri Governor Eric Greitens is still searching for answers on a few issues in relation to their client’s felony invasion of privacy case.
In a pretrial hearing held at the Carnahan Courthouse in downtown St. Louis Monday, Greitens’ attorney Jim Martin asked Circuit Judge Rex Burlison to allow the defense to re-depose William Tisaby, a former FBI agent hired by St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s office to help with the investigation by Tuesday or else dismiss the case.
Martin added that Al Watkins, the attorney representing P.S., the ex-husband of the woman at the center of the case, is also representing Tisaby.
Martin said Watkins told the defense that Tisaby couldn’t be re-deposed until next week because he is “addressing matters of national security.”
“This smells like some kind of collusion,” Martin said.
St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner said she reached out to Tisaby as directed by Burlison but was told he would not be available for a re-deposition until Monday, April 30.
Martin went on to say that having Watkins represent Tisaby is a conflict of interest in the case since Tisaby questioned K.S. back in January.
“The real concern is Watkins and Gardner have to know there is a conflict of interest,” Martin said.
Burlison ordered that Watkins be at the courthouse on Monday for a hearing at 2 p.m. to further discuss the matter.
The court will also discuss whether or not K.S.’ phone, and how much information from it, is turned over to the defense for a forensic exam.
The woman’s attorney, Scott Simpson, said an order to turn over the phone, issued by the defense, violates his client’s constitutional rights.
“That order amounts to the illegal search and seizure under my client’s fourth amendment rights,” Simpson said. “That is privileged information the defense is not entitled to have access to.”
Greitens attorney Scott Rosenblum said the defense wants the texts between woman and ex-husband because they raise questions about the ex-husband’s prior testimony.
Burlison discussed the possibility of having a third party decide what information from the woman’s phone gets released. Simpson said that didn’t remedy the issues of constitutionality.
Greitens is accused of allegedly taking a picture of a bound and partially nude woman with whom he was having an affair with at the time and threatened to blackmail her if she made the affair public.
Greitens has also been charged with two additional felony counts regarding the use of a donor list from his nonprofit charity during his gubernatorial campaign in 2015.
The news was announced by Gardner on Friday afternoon.
According to the Circuit Attorney’s Office, Gardner charged Greitens with two counts of tampering with computer data: modifying or destroying, disclosing or accessing for an incident that took place on around about April 22, 2015.
