St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner has reached an agreement with the Missouri Office of Disciplinary Counsel in which she acknowledges mistakes in her handling of the prosecution of former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens, but won’t face severe penalties for those mistakes if the agreement is approved.
In the agreement, Gardner concedes that she failed to produce documents and mistakenly maintained that all documents had been provided to Greitens’ attorneys in the 2018 criminal case.
The agreement states that Gardner’s conduct “was negligent or perhaps reckless, but not intentional.” It calls for a written reprimand. A more severe punishment—suspension or disbarment—would likely cost Gardner her job because state law requires elected prosecutors to hold active law licenses.
The disciplinary panel would still need to sign off on the agreement and make a recommendation within 30 days to the Missouri Supreme Court, which would ultimately decide Gardner’s punishment. It’s unclear when the court might make a final decision.
Greitens was accused of photographing a mistress, his hairdresser, without her consent and then blackmailing her, prompting Gardner to tap private investigator William Tisaby, a former FBI agent, to investigate the accusations.
According to Gardner, she hired Tisaby after local, state, and federal officials declined to investigate—a claim some of the officials have disputed.
Jury selection had just begun on the charge against Greitens when Gardner dropped the case because a judge ruled that the prosecutor would have to answer questions under oath from Greitens’s attorneys over her handling of the case. She said it put her in an “impossible” position of being a witness in a case that she was prosecuting. A second charge that was filed against Greitens was dropped when he resigned.
Gardner interviewed the hairdresser on Jan. 24, 2019. Gardner took notes at the beginning of the interview, but stopped at some point per a request from the woman’s attorney, according to the agreement. Gardner sent the notes via email to Tisaby, who later interviewed the hairdresser himself and took notes on a printout of Gardner’s notes during that interview.
Gardner’s office didn’t mention the notes or the email to Tisaby when producing documents to Greitens following a court order. Gardner also told the court that everything had been turned over, which “was false,” according to a complaint lodged against her.
Gardner “failed to recognize that her office had (for some undetermined reason) not properly collected for review production, and therefore had failed to review, produce ... and as appropriate log the” documents, according to the agreement.
The grand jury didn’t charge Gardner, even though charging documents stated that she had “failed to correct Tisaby’s lies, failed to report them to police, and made incorrect statements to defense lawyers and the judge.”
Gardner told the disciplinary panel on April 11 that the case against Greitens was moving quickly, which led to “a mistake on my part,” KMOV-TV reported.
“Yes, we had a process. But unfortunately, that process came up short,” she said, noting that her office has taken the case as a “lesson” moving forward.
Gardner’s representatives had previously stated that the complaint was brought by her “political enemies” to remove her and “thwart the systemic reforms she champions.”
Like many Soros-backed prosecutors, Gardner has dramatically transformed her office, including reducing prosecutions.
“If there were minor mistakes made, they were not deliberate, they did not undermine justice, and they did not deny the defendant a fair trial,” Gardner had claimed through her attorneys.
Greitens, now running for U.S. Senate, told The Epoch Times in an email that the agreement “reaffirms what we have known all along—Soros funded prosecutor Kim Gardner conducted a political witch hunt.”
“From hiring former FBI agent William Tisaby, who just plead guilty to evidence tampering, to lying and engaging in a coverup to conceal her misconduct, Gardner is the worst type of public official, corrupt and crooked.”
