Blackmail claim stirs governor inquiry

FILE - In this Dec. 6, 2016, file photo, Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens and his wife Sheena speak to the media in St. Louis.
FILE - In this Dec. 6, 2016, file photo, Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens and his wife Sheena speak to the media in St. Louis.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- The top prosecutor in St. Louis began an investigation Thursday into allegations that Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens photographed a hairdresser naked while having an affair with her and threatened to publicize the image if she spoke about their relationship.

Meanwhile, a bipartisan group of state lawmakers asked the attorney general to investigate, as well.

Greitens and his wife, in a statement late Wednesday, acknowledged that the governor was "unfaithful" in his marriage before he was elected, but he denied taking any naked photos and threatening the woman to stay quiet.

The couple released their Wednesday statement after St. Louis television station KMOV reported that the governor had a sexual relationship with his former hairdresser in 2015. The report overshadowed his annual address to the Legislature and included blackmail allegations from the woman's ex-husband, who secretly recorded a conversation with his ex-wife discussing the affair.

The affair was "a deeply personal mistake," the statement said. "Eric took responsibility, and we dealt with this together honestly and privately."

Through his attorney, Greitens, 43, also denied an allegation from the ex-husband that Greitens slapped the woman, saying any accusation of violence is "completely false."

During the 2016 campaign, Greitens cast himself as an outsider going up against a career politician, the state's Democratic attorney general. He has barely hidden his higher political ambitions and reserved the Web address ericgreitensforpresident.com years ago.

Before his election, he was known for credentials including: former Navy SEAL, former Rhodes scholar and founder of a veterans charity. Most important, he said during the campaign, was his role as "a proud husband and father."

The woman involved did not comment on the record to the TV station, which did not name her. But her ex-husband, who also was not named, provided the audio recording to KMOV in which the woman gave details about a sexual encounter that she says she had with Greitens in March 2015 at his St. Louis home. The woman did not know her then-husband was recording their conversation.

The encounter reportedly occurred after Greitens created a committee to explore a bid for governor but before he officially announced his candidacy. She said on the tape that he invited her downstairs at his home because he wanted to show her "how to do a proper pull-up."

She said: "I knew he was being sexual, and I still let him. And he used some sort of tape, I don't know what it was, and taped my hands to these rings and then put a blindfold on me."

She said she later realized he took a photo of her.

"I saw a flash through the blindfold and he said, 'You're never going to mention my name.'"

The woman did not immediately return a call left at the salon where she worked.

A bipartisan group of state senators signed a letter asking the state attorney general to investigate the blackmail allegations. Attorney General Josh Hawley's office said it would defer to local prosecutors, as required by state law.

The letter signed by Democrats and Republicans called the allegations "deeply disturbing" and said a swift investigation was necessary to avoid having the matter "overpower" the 2018 legislative session.

The Legislature adjourned Thursday for the long Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend. Lawmakers were not scheduled to return until Tuesday.

Months after the affair, the hairdresser sent Greitens an email asking him to stop booking appointments at the salon where she worked.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that the email was sent Oct. 20, 2015, three weeks after Greitens filed papers formally starting his 2016 gubernatorial campaign. It was sent to the same account that Greitens listed on a website he used in the campaign.

The newspaper did not say how it obtained the email.

She asked Greitens to "please consider all who are involved and the circumstances around us." She said returning to the salon "isn't fair to me, nor anyone close to us."

The lawyer for the ex-husband said the FBI has contacted him several times since October 2016 about the affair. Attorney Al Watkins said the agency has spoken to him about the affair and the blackmail allegations. He did not say if the ex-husband has also heard from the FBI.

A spokesman for the FBI's St. Louis office said the agency could not confirm nor deny that it was investigating.

St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner, a Democrat, initially said no criminal complaint had been filed against Greitens and no evidence of a crime was presented to her office. But after consideration, she said, she concluded that an investigation is necessary.

Greitens' attorney, Jim Bennett, said the governor was "very confident he will be cleared in any investigation. This is a 3-year-old personal matter that presents no matters of public or legal interest."

Information for this article was contributed by David A. Lieb and John Hanna of The Associated Press.

A Section on 01/12/2018

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