ST. LOUIS — Byers' Beat is a weekly column written by the I-Team's Christine Byers, who has covered public safety in St. Louis for 15 years. It is intended to offer context and analysis to the week's biggest crime stories and public safety issues.
Two attorneys for former Gov. Eric Greitens have been told they will not be testifying at St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner's upcoming disciplinary hearing regarding how she handled the case, according to multiple sources familiar with the proceedings.
Scott Rosenblum and Jim Martin were expected to testify during the hearing before the Missouri Office of Disciplinary Counsel Monday at the St. Louis County Courthouse.
Calling off witnesses in a case like this signals several possibilities, according to legal experts I’ve talked to, including a potential plea deal in the case, or a that Gardner could stipulate to a series of facts about the case so the disciplinary counsel can make its decision without hearing arguments about them in court.
Something is still expected to happen at the courthouse in this case Monday.
Plans are underway to ensure media access, and the hearing remains on the Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel’s calendar.
So, Gardner’s law license is still on the line. Here’s what led to this point.
In 2017, Gardner charged Greitens with one count of invasion of privacy for allegedly snapping a compromising photo of his mistress without her consent in 2015, and threatened to use it against her.
He was elected as governor in November 2016.
Greitens hired a slew of high-profile defense attorneys, including Rosenblum, Martin, Edward Dowd Jr., James Bennett, Jack Garvey and Michelle Nasser.
Greitens pleaded not guilty, but the case never made it to court.
Greitens’ legal team accused Gardner’s private investigator, William Don Tisaby, of lying about taking notes during an interview with Greitens’ mistress that were not turned over to the defense.
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In a video of the interview, Tisaby can be seen taking notes while Gardner is sitting next to him.
The defense team wanted to call Gardner to the stand, and a judge ruled they could do so.
Gardner then dropped the felony charge against Greitens in exchange for his resignation from office in 2018.
But the probe into Tisaby and Gardner’s potential misconduct regarding the notes taken during that interview with the mistress continued.
Tisaby, a former FBI agent, was indicted in 2019 on six counts of perjury and one count of evidence tampering.
5 On Your Side’s news partners at the St. Louis Business Journal reported on a 73-page document Missouri’s Chief Disciplinary Counsel Alan Pratzel filed against Gardner, accusing her of making false statements in open court about what had been given to Greitens’ defense attorneys. She did not give them notes she took during the same interview with Greitens’ mistress, and failed “to take reasonable remedial measures" when she knew Tisaby falsely said during a deposition that he didn't receive Gardner's notes.
And Gardner "knowingly" made false statements to Pratzel during his investigation, according to those documents.
The Journal also reported Gardner’s attorney, Michael Downey, said her office did not have an obligation to disclose her notes because they, “constituted her mental impressions and were attorney opinion work product, and thus protected from discovery,” and, her office didn’t know she had the notes until a special prosecutor investigating Tisaby, Gerard Carmody, found them during, "a wholly unprecedented seizure of every possible relevant electronically stored document from Ms. Gardner's office."
Fast forward to March, Tisaby pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of tampering with physical evidence. He was sentenced to one year of probation.
And, just days from now, Gardner’s fate in all of this will be at stake.
The Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel could punish Gardner with anything from a reprimand, probation, suspension of her law license or even disbarment.
It could also dismiss the case.
For now, it seems, the testimony of at least two witnesses won’t be necessary for the panel to make its decision.
