ST. LOUIS — A former FBI agent who investigated former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens in 2018 pleaded guilty Wednesday to misdemeanor evidence tampering, avoiding a perjury trial that would have started with jury selection Thursday.
William Don Tisaby, 69, appeared before St. Louis Circuit Judge Bryan Hettenbach at 1:30 p.m. A special prosecutor filed a superseding charge of misdemeanor evidence tampering shortly before the plea, replacing a variety of other charges, including perjury.
Tisaby received a suspended sentence of one year of probation and will be required to pay court costs.
Johnson County Prosecutor Robert Russell, who was appointed special prosecutor in the case, said the misdemeanor count of evidence tampering is for Tisaby's false testimony that he received no documentation from Circuit Attorney Kimberly M. Gardner about the Greitens case before interviewing Greitens' accuser and another witness in January 2018.
Russell said Tisaby also falsely testified that he never provided Gardner with an outline of his investigative steps and notes from his interview with Greitens' accuser.
The reduced charge replaces the six felony perjury counts and one felony evidence tampering charge.
Russell said he amended the evidence tampering charge to a misdemeanor because the felony invasion of privacy charge against Greitens required evidence of the alleged photo being transmitted. Investigators never found the photo Greitens was accused of taking.
Tisaby was indicted in 2019 stemming from sworn statements about his invasion of privacy investigation of Greitens, who was accused of taking a photo of a semi-nude woman without her consent in 2015 in the basement of his Central West End home.
Jurors would have been asked to decide whether Tisaby's misstatements during a March 2018 deposition in the run-up to the Greitens invasion of privacy trial were important enough to the Greitens case
Proving perjury requires that those false statements are "material" to the central issues of a case.
Tisaby testified that he changed many of his answers but never gave false information. He refused to answer some questions during the deposition, saying certain aspects were "privileged."
Gardner dropped the invasion of privacy charge against Greitens during jury selection when faced with possibly having to testify in the case. Gardner later dismissed a computer tampering charge involving the misuse of a charity donor list in exchange for Greitens' resignation.
Greitens is currently seeking the Republican nomination for a U.S. Senate seat.
Next month, Gardner will have a disciplinary hearing on ethics charges resembling the allegations against Tisaby. The hearing April 11 could decide the fate of Gardner's law license and political future. She has denied misconduct charges against her.
She began investigating Greitens in January 2018 after news broke that Greitens had had an affair with his hair stylist as he was preparing to run for office. The prosecutor hired Tisaby as her lead investigator in the case.
The hair stylist's ex-husband claimed Greitens had threatened to release a nude or semi-nude photo of the woman if she exposed their affair. Greitens denied that.
Gardner first interviewed Greitens’ accuser without Tisaby. Five days later, Tisaby interviewed the woman, with Gardner present. That February, a grand jury indicted Greitens on one felony count of invasion of privacy.
During Tisaby's first deposition, Greitens’ defense team sought to attack his investigation and undermine the credibility of Greitens' accuser.
Gardner took part in the deposition and frequently objected to questions about Tisaby’s investigation of matters unrelated to the invasion of privacy charge.
The defense team deposed Tisaby again in April of that year, but he refused to answer questions.
Greitens' lawyers, who claimed Tisaby had committed perjury and that Gardner let him do it, then filed a complaint with police that sparked a contentious, monthslong grand jury investigation into Tisaby and the circuit attorney's office.
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