State to drop felony charge against Missouri governor
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Prosecutors agreed to drop one of two felony criminal cases against Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens after the governor’s attorneys said he would resign if the allegations were dismissed, a spokeswoman for St. Louis’ top prosecutor said Wednesday.
A day after Greitens announced he would step down, St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner said her office decided to dismiss a charge of computer data tampering following conversations with the defense team for the governor, who was once a rising star in the Republican Party.
“I remain confident we have the evidence required to pursue charges against Mr. Greitens, but sometimes pursuing charges is not the right thing to do for our city or our state,” said Gardner, a Democrat.
A spokeswoman for Gardner’s office, Susan Ryan, said the defense approached prosecutors with an offer to resign if the case were dropped. Prosecutors agreed.
Defense attorney Jim Martin acknowledged reaching out to Gardner to resolve the issue but added, “I don’t think that’s exactly the full play.” He did not elaborate.
The charge, filed in April after an investigation by the Missouri attorney general’s office, accused Greitens of using a donor list from the veterans charity he founded, The Mission Continues, for his 2016 gubernatorial campaign.
Responding to Greitens’ past statements calling the prosecution “a witch hunt” that inflicted pain on his family, Gardner said the governor had brought the charges upon himself “by his actions, his statements, his decisions, his ambition and his pursuit for power.”
Had the governor been convicted, she said, it was unlikely he would be sentenced to prison, given the type of charge he faced and the fact that he would be a first-time offender.
A St. Louis judge approved the agreement, which has seven stipulations, two of which are sealed and unavailable to the public. One of the open stipulations states that Greitens has agreed to release Gardner and everyone in her office from civil liability.
The governor also was indicted on invasion-ofprivacy charges in February in St. Louis for allegedly taking an unauthorized and compromising photo of a woman during an extramarital affair in 2015, before he was elected. The charge was dropped earlier this month, but a special prosecutor is considering whether to refile it.