The former wife of onetime Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens, now a leading Republican US Senate candidate, has accused him of physically abusing her and their children at the end of their marriage, court documents filed Monday reveal.
Sheena Greitens alleged in the court filings that her ex-husband knocked her down, stole her phone, struck their children and threatened to commit suicide if she didn’t publicly support him during the 2018 sex scandal that led to him resigning as governor.
She made the disturbing allegations public for the first time in a sworn affidavit as part of an ongoing child custody dispute with Greitens in Missouri over their two young sons.
“Prior to our divorce, during an argument in late April 2018, Eric knocked me down and confiscated my cell phone, wallet and keys so that I was unable to call for help or extricate myself and our children from our home,” Sheena alleged in the filing.
“I became afraid for my safety and that of our children at our home, which was fairly isolated, due to Eric’s unstable and coercive behavior,” she added. “This behavior included physical violence toward our children, such as cuffing our then three-year-old son across the face at the dinner table in front of me and yanking him around by the hair.”
Greitens’ campaign manager, Dylan Johnson, dismissed the allegations as “completely false” and “politically-motivated.”
“His ex-wife is engaged in a last-ditch attempt to vindictively destroy her ex-husband,” Johnson said in a statement. “Eric has always been a great Dad, who loves his boys and has always put them first, and that is why he is filing for full custody of his children.”
Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, one of Greitens’ rivals, tweeted in response to the filing: “These allegations of abuse are disgusting and sickening. As Missouri’s attorney general, I know a predator when I see one, and I have fought for victims every step of the way. The behavior described in this affidavit is cause for Eric Greitens to be in prison, not on the ballot for U.S. Senate. He should end his campaign immediately.”
Eric and Sheena Greitens’ relationship collapsed four years ago when he was accused of taking a compromising photo of his hairdresser without her consent when they were in the midst of an extramarital affair in 2015.
Greitens was indicted on an invasion-of-privacy charge after the photo, which showed the undressed woman blindfolded and bound, was made public in January 2018. The charge against Greitens, a former Navy SEAL and Rhodes Scholar, was later dropped by prosecutors.
A Missouri House committee then began investigating campaign finance issues and Greitens faced a second felony charge in St. Louis where he was accused of providing his political fundraiser with the donor list of his veterans’ charity.
In the affidavit, Sheena alleged her scandal-plagued husband had admitted to her that he took the compromising photo of his mistress, but warned she could face legal trouble if she ever disclosed that fact to anyone, even her therapist.
In the leadup to his resignation as governor in May 2018, Sheena claimed Greitens had bought a gun but refused to tell her where it was. She also alleged that he threatened to kill himself “unless I provided specific public political support.”
His behavior had become so alarming, Sheena alleged, that on three separate occasions in February, April and May 2018, “multiple people other than myself were worried enough to intervene to limit Eric’s access to firearms.”
Sheena claimed Greitens also threatened her when he was trying to convince her to delete emails she had sent to her therapist seeking help.
“Eric threatened to accuse me of child abuse if I did not delete the emails and convince the therapist to delete them,” she wrote in the affidavit, which also alleged Greitens berated her as a “hateful, disgusting, nasty, vicious … lying b— h” as he accused her of providing information about him and his scandals to prosecutors and the media.
Sheena further claims Greitens threatened to use his political connections and influence to destroy her reputation and gain custody of their children after their divorce was finalized in 2020.
While Greitens largely kept a low profile in the wake of his resignation, that changed when the Missouri Ethics Commission last year cleared him personally of any wrongdoing, despite finding probable cause that his campaign broke campaign finance law.
Then, the once-rising GOP star announced in March last year that he would run for the Senate seat being vacated by fellow Republican Roy Blunt.
Sheena is trying to have the custody case moved to Austin, Texas, where she now lives with her sons, in a bid to spare the children from renewed public attention in the wake of Greitens’ bid for a political comeback.
She wrote in her affidavit that Greitens’ return to politics had been taxing on her and the power he would obtain as a senator was “extremely intimidating.”
“Now that Eric is a candidate for federal office, public interest in my life, my relationship with Eric and the breakdown thereof, and the existence of issues of custody between Eric and me are being re-kindled and brought back into central public discussion,” Sheena wrote before urging a judge to move the matter to where “the reach of his power and influence is significantly less.”
