St. Louis, MO (AP) An attorney for Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens says the owner of a political publication based in Jefferson City delivered one of the two $50,000 payments to the law firm representing the ex-husband of a woman who had an affair with the governor.
Attorney Al Watkins represents the ex-husband and testified during a deposition Monday as part of the invasion of privacy case against Greitens. The Republican governor is accused of taking an unauthorized and compromising photo of a woman with whom he had an affair in 2015, before he was elected.
Watkins did not return messages seeking comment. But during a hearing Monday in the midst of the deposition, defense attorney Jim Martin said Missouri Times owner Scott Faughn provided the first $50,000 payment to Watkins’ law firm in January, just before Greitens admitted to the affair.
Watkins said last week he did not know the source of the money and then later said it was an unnamed client.
Fox 2 News reports that Greitens’s lawyers said they want to delve deeper in a continued deposition Tuesday because they say Faughn is connected to developers who profit from hundreds of millions of dollars every year in low-income housing tax credits. That’s a program Governor Greitens eliminated and which would likely be resurrected if he is ousted.
