The 2018 prosecution of Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens played a key role in his eventual resignation. Now, questions about the handling of the case by the St. Circuit lawyer. Louis, Kim Gardner, are jeopardizing his career, although Greitens is trying to get back into politics.
Gardner will face a hearing Monday in the Missouri Disciplinary Attorney’s Office. She is accused in a 73-page report of failing to disclose evidence to Greitens’ attorneys, misrepresenting evidence and other ethical violations.
If the three-person panel finds fault, it will be up to the Missouri Supreme Court to decide the punishment, although a decision would not be expected for several weeks. The most severe punishment (suspension or disqualification) would probably cost Gardner his job because state law requires elected prosecutors to have active legal licenses.
Gardner, a 46-year-old Democrat, is the first black lawyer on the St. Louis and is one of several progressive prosecutors elected in recent years with the goal of creating more justice in the criminal justice system.
In the last 12 months, Greitens has become one of the main contenders Republican nomination for one of the U.S. Senate seats in Missouriin spite of recent allegations of abuse for his ex-wife.
The brazen ex-officer of the Navy SEAL with presidential aspirations was a year away from his first term when in January 2018 he reported an affair three years earlier with his hairdresser in St. Louis. The woman stated that Greitens he took a compromising photo and threatened to use it as blackmail if he talked about their relationship.
“There was a victim, someone said they had been attacked,” Gardner’s attorney, Michael Downey, said.
But neither the FBI nor St. Louis police Louis seemed willing to investigate, Downey said. Gardner’s in-house investigator was out of military service.
So Gardner hired private investigator William Tisaby, a former FBI agent. The investigation led to the prosecution of Greitens for a crime of invasion of privacy. Greitens claimed he had been the victim of a political witch hunt.
The selection of the jury had just begun when Gardner he left office after a judge ruled that he should answer questions under oath from Greitens’ lawyers about his handling of the case. He said it put her in an “impossible” position to witness a case she was prosecuting.
Meanwhile, Gardner filed a second indictment accusing Greitens of manipulating computer data for allegedly revealing to his political fundraiser a list of major donors to a veterans’ charity he founded, without the charity’s permission.
Also investigated by lawmakers, Greitens resigned in June 2018and Gardner agreed to drop the criminal charges.
At the time, the focus was on how Gardner and Tisaby handled the investigation. In 2019, Tisaby was charged with six counts of perjury and one count of perjury. Last month he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor of tampering with evidence and received a suspended sentence of one year probation.
The case stemmed from Tisaby’s statement that he had not taken notes in an interview with the woman when a video later showed that he did, and his statement that he had not received notes from the prosecution before interviewing the woman when a document later. he proved he had.
Greitens’ attorneys raised concerns that Gardner did not correct the record of Tisaby’s statements and whether she hid evidence.
Downey said the mistakes were unintentional, the result of Gardner’s heavy workload during Greitens’ investigation.
“In the circumstances of the case, I think they were doing the best job possible to handle the case,” Downey said. “We have admitted in our response that mistakes have been made.”
University of Washington law professor Peter Joy, who teaches and writes on legal ethics, said the fact that Gardner did not disclose Tisaby’s notes is not necessarily a violation because Missouri law does not. specifies a deadline for such disclosures, in which case the testimony had not even begun.
“I don’t think the ethics case against her is that clear,” Joy said. “This is not someone falsifying evidence.”
If disciplined, Joy said Gardner was very unlikely to be suspended or disqualified. This would derail his critics, who claim that Gardner’s office is dysfunctional and ineffective.
Last summer, charges were dropped in three murder cases in one week because prosecutors did not appear in court or were unprepared after months of delay, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The newspaper also cited Circuit Court data showing that about a third of crime cases were dismissed, three times the percentage of its predecessor.
Gardner maintains this its reforms they have made the city safer and the criminal justice system more equitable. It has expanded a diversion program and stopped processing low-level marijuana possession, helping to significantly reduce prison overcrowding.
Gardner has often been at odds with police, especially in 2019, when he put dozens of officers on an “exclusion list,” banning them from filing cases. The list was drawn up after a national group accused the agents of posting racist and anti-Muslim comments on social media.
In 2020, Gardner filed a lawsuit accusing the city, a police union and others of a coordinated, racist conspiracy to force her to step down. The lawsuit alleges violations of the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, which was enacted to thwart efforts to deny the civil rights of racial minorities.
Downey, in a lawsuit, said the latest ethical complaints involve “another attempt by Ms. Gardner’s political enemies, largely outside of St. Louis, to eliminate Ms. Gardner and thwart the systemic reforms she advocates.” .
Greitens had largely remained out of sight until Senator Roy Blunt announced in March 2021 that he would not seek a third term. Republican leaders are worried he may win the primary but lose to a Democrat in the general election, losing what should be a GOP seat.
In a court case last month in a child custody case, Sheena Greitens accused her ex-husband of physically abusing her and her children. Eric Greitens called the allegations “completely fabricated” and “unfounded.”
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