ST. LOUIS _ Circuit Judge Rex Burlison on Tuesday issued a partial gag order on all parties involved in the felony case against Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens.
Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner had filed a motion Tuesday seeking the order following weeks of public statements and defense filings attacking the case against Greitens. But Burlison said in court that he had planned to hold a hearing to discuss a gag order even before Gardner filed her request.
"In the last 48 hours, things have been kind of going back and forth," Burlison said, referring to a defense motion filed Sunday night quoting deposition testimony from the governor's former lover in which she said she may have only recalled seeing a camera or phone in a dream.
After Tuesday's hearing, Burlison said he would sign the order barring all parties, their lawyers and witnesses from making public statements about the identity of witnesses, their expected testimony, references to evidence or any personal belief about the defendant's guilt or innocence.
Burlison's order also prohibits anyone directly involved in the case from publishing or disseminating deposition testimony but doesn't "preclude statements regarding the general nature of the law and the charge, scheduling information, the substance of court orders or rulings that are of public record, and the contents or substance of any motions that are in the public record ... "
Any references to deposition testimony with pretrial motions will be filed as sealed exhibits until Burlison reviews them and rules whether they become public court filings, the judge said.
Gardner said her office sought the gag order following numerous television and radio interviews with defense attorney Ed Dowd.
Prosecutors claim court orders limiting release of evidence have been violated, and lawyers for Greitens have tried "to litigate this case in the press, conducting personal attacks on the victim, witnesses, investigators, and the Circuit Attorney." They called it "political grandstanding."
The move follows a series of legal motions by Greitens' legal team that did attack the credibility of prosecutors, their investigator and the woman who claims that Greitens took a nude photo of her without her permission during a sexual encounter at his former home. She told her husband in a taped conversation that Greitens threatened to release the picture if she revealed the affair.
Public statements have escalated after the deposition of the woman Friday.
On Sunday, defense lawyers filed a motion claiming she may have only seen Greitens' cellphone in a dream, but also said the woman sent nude or partially nude images of herself to Greitens through Facetime in June 2015.
A lawyer for Greitens' former mistress on Monday accused the governor's defense team of mischaracterizing the woman's deposition testimony, and says she'll support the release of the complete transcript "to set the record straight."
The office of Albert Watkins, who is representing the woman's ex-husband, announced during his deposition Monday that there would be a press conference following it. He then canceled it, citing "an order of the court."
Tuesday morning, Watkins issued a statement saying lawyers tried to kick him out of his client's deposition twice. He also said he was accepting money for legal expenses for his client, comparing the fundraising to "the Governor's established protocol."
In interviews broadcast Tuesday, defense lawyer Dowd said prosecutors should drop the case, and a lawyer for the woman told the Riverfront Times that she had testified three times under oath that Greitens took her picture, after first ripping her shirt open and pulling her pants down to her ankles.
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