COLUMBIA, Mo. — Sheena Chestnut Greitens says since she accused Eric Greitens, her ex-husband and former Missouri governor, of abuse, he has become “unhinged,” launching a campaign to destroy her reputation.
“When his political future is at risk, he becomes erratic, unhinged, coercive and threatening,” Greitens told Boone County Circuit Judge Leslie Schneider in a sworn statement Thursday. “He accuses me of things that are untrue and generates conspiracy theories about me collaborating with his ‘enemies,’ when I have done no such thing.”
Sheena Greitens, an associate professor at the University of Texas, is seeking to move a custody case involving the couple’s two sons, ages 7 and 5, to Austin. In a sworn affidavit on March 21, she accused Eric Greitens, a Republican running for U.S. Senate, of physical abuse, including causing one of their sons to lose a tooth.
She said she would provide documentation of her abuse claims.
“He also claims that these allegations have never been reported; in fact, they were reported to multiple lawyers, therapists and our mediator, in 2018 and afterward,” Sheena Greitens said.
“I will provide contemporaneous documentation of the relevant communications, as well as photographic evidence of my child’s 2019 injuries, to the court at the appropriate time,” she said.
Sheena Greitens said in addition to causing one son to lose a tooth, during an argument in April 2018, “Eric knocked me down and confiscated my cellphone, wallet and keys so that I was unable to call for help or extricate myself and our children from our home at Innsbrook.”
Eric Greitens, in a statement March 21, called the allegations “completely fabricated” and “baseless.”
He later appeared as a guest on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, in which he accused his ex-wife of aiding political operatives, including RINOs — “Republicans in name only” — who oppose his candidacy. He claimed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was behind the effort.
“Eric’s behavior since 3/21 is consistent with several patterns that I have previously experienced,” Sheena Greitens said Thursday. “He uses words like ‘nasty’ and ‘vicious’ to describe my behavior, and threatens to try to take my children away.
“He did each of these things in June 2018, leading me to leave our home with my children out of fear for our safety, and he has done each of them again this week and last week,” she said. “The video that he posted on 3/25 is a particularly troubling demonstration of his mental state when he perceives his political life to be under threat.”
In that video, Greitens, appearing with a raspy voice and unkempt hair, placed blame for the scandal on McConnell and Republican political strategist Karl Rove, calling them “disgusting cowards” and saying “true patriots, true conservatives, we are coming for you.”
“Eric’s out-of-court statements are professionally damaging to my work in public policy and national security,” Sheena Greitens said. “He has repeatedly claimed that I spent spring break in Washington, D.C., to plan a political attack orchestrated by ‘political operatives,’ naming McConnell and Rove.
“He said that ‘they’ wrote the affidavit and that it was distributed to the press in Washington, D.C.,” she said. “None of these claims are true. I went to Washington, D.C., to discharge my responsibilities as a paid employee and fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and my conversations there were about American national security and U.S. policy towards China.”
Sheena Greitens notes that she has refused to comment on the case in the news media despite Eric Grietens giving numerous interviews on the topic.
“I would like to continue to restrict my comments on this to the courtroom,” Sheena Greitens said, “but it will be difficult to do so if we cannot resolve the question of where this case should be decided until May 27, because I expect I will have to go through two months of untrue public attacks on my character, motherhood and professionalism.”
She said his continued attacks on her professional reputation could harm her ability to provide for their sons.
“Eric is not required to pay regular child support as part of our original agreement,” Sheena Greitens said, “meaning that it is especially important that his attacks do not threaten my work and my ability to be the main financial support for our sons.”
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