ST. LOUIS _ In two tense court hearings and a court filing Monday, lawyers for Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens unleashed a series of accusations against investigators and the ex-husband of the woman with whom Greitens had an affair.
After a former lead investigator of Greitens' invasion of privacy case, William Don Tisaby, failed to show for a deposition Monday, defense lawyers said either the case should be dismissed or Tisaby's lies under oath should be grounds to disqualify St. Louis prosecutors from a separate felony case filed against Greitens last week.
They also quoted St. Louis Circuit Judge Rex Burlison saying, in a lawyers-only hearing in his office April 12, that Tisaby may have committed criminal perjury. Burlison also cautioned Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner in the meeting that her statements were under oath, and she had the right to an attorney after defense allegations that she allowed Tisaby to lie, a court filing says.
The invasion of privacy charge centers on accusations that Greitens took a nude picture of the woman in 2015 without her permission.
In an unexpected turn Monday, defense lawyers said in court that Al Watkins, the lawyer for the ex-husband of Greitens' accuser, received two anonymous cash payments of $50,000 from a "political operative," but did not elaborate on that claim.
The defense earlier sought to question former Democratic Party Chairman Roy Temple regarding any payments to the woman, Watkins or the woman's ex-husband. Temple has said publicly and in court filings that he had nothing to do with it, and the suggestion was "disgusting."
After the hearing, Watkins said a courier dropped off the payments at his Clayton law firm in January.
Watkins said "there's no doubt" the cash was related to the Greitens case but he said he didn't know who it was intended for, and the money came with no instructions.
His office later received "a call from an intermediary," but he would not identify the source of the money or the intermediary. Watkins said in a news conference after the court hearing that he could not disclose the source.
While there was no explicit instruction on what to do with the money, Watkins said, "it's really clear that this was given by virtue of what they anticipated to be the fallout from disclosure of these recordings."
Watkins said his client "feared for his life" and had been subjected to hacking attempts and "incessant" contacts from media and political operatives for more than a year before the affair became public.
"This was the worst kept secret in America," he said.
Watkins also said the money went to pay some of the ex-husband's legal bills, but his client still owes him for legal expenses. Watkins said he told federal investigators about the payments, and they determined that there had been no crime.
Defense lawyers were supposed to depose Tisaby for a second time Monday, and Greitens' lawyers complained that Gardner had failed to arrange the deposition Monday. They claimed it was another tactic to delay the trial past May 14.
Gardner countered that she did her best to reach Tisaby over the weekend but couldn't make contact. Tisaby's deposition was later rescheduled for Thursday.
Watkins also briefly represented Tisaby until Burlison disqualified him from doing so Monday afternoon. Burlison said he was concerned about the appearance of a conflict of interest and the potential impact on the public's confidence in the proper administration of justice, because Watkins also represents the ex-husband and testified in front of the grand jury that indicted Greitens.
Watkins said Tisaby was out of town working with the FBI on matters of "national security."
"God help this country if that's true," responded defense lawyer Jim Martin. Martin cited Tisaby's lies to the FBI concerning allegations of bigamy in the 1990s as examples of why he would never pass a background check to work in national security.
Gardner on Monday sought to distance her office from Tisaby, saying she did not intend to call him as a witness and that the judge could strike his testimony if Tisaby refuses to answer questions or again fails to show up for a deposition.
Burlison warned Gardner that striking Tisaby's testimony could also affect the witnesses he questioned, including the woman at the center of the case.
Later, Gardner said Tisaby is no longer the lead investigator.
Asked three times by Burlison who was now leading the investigation, Gardner stared, sat down and did not answer.
First Assistant Circuit Attorney Robert Steele broke the silence, saying the lead was now Anthony Box, a former FBI agent who Gardner hired recently to run her team of investigators.
Defense lawyers appeared shocked, saying prosecutors claimed Box was not involved in the investigation when they successfully quashed a subpoena for his deposition.
Box was the author of the probable cause statement in last week's felony charge of computer tampering that Gardner's office filed against the governor.
Also Monday, Burlison ordered the woman and her ex-husband to turn over information on their cellphones. The defense wants to obtain text messages and other communications between the woman and her ex-husband, and original copies of the surreptitious recordings of conversations he had with her in 2015 about the affair.
Greitens' lawyers also filed a motion to disqualify Gardner's office Monday. The motion claims prosecutors were aware of Tisaby's lies under oath at the time and may have elicited some of them. It also says Tisaby's lie about whether he spoke to Gardner before interviewing the woman was intended to give the appearance of impartiality and independence. The defense claimed that meant Tisaby "essentially admitted that the investigations have been tainted by politics."
During the closed-door discussion of perjury in Burlison's chambers Thursday, Gardner's chief trial assistant, Robert Dierker, told lawyers and Burlison that he would ask for an investigation. When he did not, the motion quotes Burlison saying, "someone has to investigate" and Gardner responding that the allegations are "unfounded."
The motion calls Gardner's support for Tisaby "difficult to understand."
It also cites repeated failures by prosecutors to turn over evidence, as required, resulting in sanctions by Burlison last week.
Defense lawyers say Gardner has a "personal motivation to justify the prior charges and conduct by bringing new charges, which the defendant believes to be equally unfounded."
A special prosecutor should not be named from Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley's office, the motion says, because he called for Greitens' resignation on April 11, after a House report quoted the woman as saying Greitens was physically abusive and threatened to blackmail her with the nude photo. He has denied the claims, and has refused bipartisan calls for his resignation.
At least some evidence in that case was provided to Gardner's office by Hawley, who announced April 17 that his office had uncovered evidence Greitens misused a donor list belonging to a charity he co-founded to help fund his 2016 campaign.
