KANSAS CITY, Mo. _ The agreement to dismiss a felony computer-tampering charge against Eric Greitens included a secret provision in which the former governor of Missouri admitted that prosecutors had enough evidence for the case to go to a jury.
Greitens agreed to resign as part of the agreement negotiated late last month with St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner.
The acknowledgment, which had been blacked out from a publicly released copy of the document, came to light following Sunshine Law requests from The Kansas City Star and other Missouri media outlets.
It is not an admission of guilt on Greitens' part. But it means that Greitens, through his legal counsel, agrees that prosecutors had sufficient evidence to make the case "submissible" to a jury _ and that reasonable jurors could conceivably find him guilty.
It's a startling revelation for Greitens, a Republican who has consistently described the legal peril he faced as nothing more than a politically motivated witch hunt by Gardner, a Democrat.
"It's a significant concession and something that, especially given his public statements in the past, the public ought to know," said Jean Paul Bradshaw, a former U.S. attorney for western Missouri.
The agreement was filed in court on May 30, but there was no judicial order requiring the redactions.
A second secret provision in the agreement states that Greitens' acknowledgment _ that there's enough evidence of guilt to go to a jury _ would be sealed from public view unless he committed a new offense, or made public comments that contradicted this acknowledgment.
The agreement was contingent on Greitens submitting a letter of resignation to the Missouri secretary of state, a provision that already had been made public, along with another provision in which Greitens agreed to release Gardner, her office and any consultants from civil liability.
Greitens officially stepped down on Friday, making way for Lt. Gov. Mike Parson to replace him as governor.
In response to multiple Sunshine Law requests to release an unredacted copy of the agreement, Gardner's office had stated it believed the full document constituted an open record under Missouri law, but that Greitens' legal counsel strongly opposed its release.
Gardner then sought an opinion from Missouri's Republican Attorney General, Josh Hawley, on Friday, as to whether the agreement was a public record.
Hawley's office on Tuesday sent a letter back to Gardner, stating the attorney general's opinion that the agreement was an open record. The letter said a settlement agreement is a type of contract, and that contracts entered into by governmental entities _ in this case, by the state's governor at the time and a publicly elected prosecutor _ are exactly the type of documents intended to be made public under Missouri's Sunshine Law.
"Given the circumstances surrounding this matter, it is unlikely that any interests would clearly outweigh the public's strong interest in knowing the terms of the settlement agreement here," the letter said.
The real question now is what happens to the agreement, said Brendan Roediger, law professor at St. Louis University.
Roediger said the release of the unredacted document by Gardner's office could be a breach of the agreement because it violates the provision to seal Greitens' admission and not make it public unless specific conditions were met.
"In an agreement such as this, every provision is equally important and there's no what we would call 'non-material' portion of it," he said. "So a violation of any of the stipulations is a breach of the agreement."
That means that the release of liability for Gardner's office is now gone _ unless Greitens' attorneys are willing to keep it in play, Roediger said. The attorney general's opinion would not provide legal cover to Gardner in that case, he said.
If a judge ordered the document released, that would be a different story, he added.
"I don't think they would be in breach of the agreement if the court releases it," Roediger said.
But defendants who pursue litigation against prosecutors face a high standard of evidence, legal experts said.
"Prosecutors are immune, anyway," said Jim Wyrsch, a civil and criminal defense attorney in Kansas City. "But there are some exceptions to that, like bad faith."
