ST. LOUIS – Governor Eric Greitens alleges in a motion to dismiss a felony charge of privacy invasion that investigator William Tisaby committed perjury and circuit attorney Kim Gardner suborned it.
On April 20, Greitens’ defense counsel James Martin wrote that Tisaby boldly and continually lied under oath in a deposition and concealed his notes and draft reports.
Tisaby allegedly perjured himself in response to almost every question he was asked, “with the circuit attorney knowingly watching on,” Martin wrote.
Martin asserts that Gardner had to know Tisaby lied.
“In fact, she proactively encouraged him to lie,” Martin wrote.
She withheld evidence for political reasons and produced it only after the Missouri House of Representatives released a report, the motion states.
Circuit Judge Rex Burlison has ordered a second deposition of Tisaby to take place on Thursday, April 26.
Greitens’ legal team is asking Burlison to sanction Gardner by dismissing the privacy invasion charge.
Gardner hired Tisaby’s firm, Enterra LLC, in January.
She claimed she needed someone with no relation to St. Louis, but his website shows he was security director for Laclede Gas.
His name also appears online as an officer of Bowie Knife Security, a St. Louis security firm that is no longer active.
Enterra’s website claims Tisaby prevented an attack on Fort Hood, Texas, but a spokesman there said he didn’t recognize the name.
Tisaby formed Enterra LLC in 2016, as a Delaware corporation doing business in Michigan.
Enterra LLC hasn’t filed annual reports or anything else in either state since.
According to Martin, Tisaby violated Alabama law and was demoted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for misconduct.
Martin wrote that Gardner “decided to avoid using the St. Louis metropolitan police department, thereby eliminating the routine production of reports.”
In the motion to dismiss, Martin wrote that Gardner signed a contract calling for oral reports only unless she specifically requested otherwise.
“It was indisputably Ms. Gardner who set up this investigation so that she could control the flow of discovery,” he wrote.
The case centers around a photograph, Martin wrote, and when Tisaby was asked whether he had seen it, he said he hadn’t and that, “I don’t think anybody has.”
Tisaby further testified he didn’t know whether one exists or not.
Martin wrote that investigative notes omitted from Tisaby's final report included mention of “a witness” who was concerned that the accuser would do something detrimental to Greitens, and that this witness said the accuser was nervous because she was married and not because Greitens did anything unlawful.
According to Martin’s motion, Tisaby wrote in his notes that the witness concluded that she thought Greitens cared about her. Martin wrote that the statement directly contradicted the accuser’s quote to the House committee that, “I was a thing to him.”
Martin further stated that Gardner presented the best evidence of Tisaby’s lies, stating she gave him a briefing on a prior oral interview of the victim.
He wrote that Tisaby lied about the briefing and that Tisaby claimed he didn’t want information from Gardner before the interview because he wanted to do an independent investigation.
“Thus, Mr. Tisaby had a point to this lie, which was to suggest that the investigation was not tainted by politics,” Martin wrote.
“The circuit attorney went along with this lie, presumably for the same reason.”
Martin wrote that Gardner heard Tisaby testify that he never took notes.
He wrote that Tisaby said, “I sit and take in everything that they say.”
“No rational person could believe a former FBI agent went his whole career and never created any interview notes,” Martin wrote. “If Ms. Gardner now wants to claim she believed that testimony, then she will be lying directly to the court.”
Martin wrote that Tisaby’s memorandum on his interview with the accuser included incendiary statements she never said.
He wrote that she didn’t use loaded words like traumatized or violated. He wrote that Tisaby placed words in quotes that the witness didn’t say.
According to Martin, the worst allegations in the report aren’t in the tape at all and that the prejudice from the delay in producing the notes was massive.
“The delay meant that the notes, drafts and tapes were provided after the House report was completed and published, an event that may well have ruined any ability by the defendant to obtain a fair trial,” he wrote.
He wrote that video revealed that key themes and specific testimony in the grand jury did not come from the accuser but were added or prompted by Tisaby.
The video established that she told her friends everything in 2015, and that they didn’t remember any statement of slapping or violence. Gardner had a duty to look beyond the lies to find hidden evidence, Martin wrote.
“Sadly, it appears the core reason she did not do so is because she was a participant in both the lying and the concealing of evidence,” Martin wrote.
Burlison has set trial to start May 14.