On Thursday, a grand jury indicted Missouri governor Eric Greitens for taking a photograph of a nude woman without her consent and transmitting it on a computer, the New York Times reports.
The charge comes after the first-term Republican politician admitted to having an extramarital affair last month. The woman Greitens was involved with, a former hairstylist who hasn’t been named, has said Greitens took her photograph without her consent and threatened to release it if she told anyone about the affair, according to local TV station KMOV.
Although the woman hasn’t spoken publicly, in a tape made by her ex-husband she recounted what happened when she went to Greitens’s house in 2015, per the Washington Post:
Once she arrived, he told her he would show her how to do pull-ups, taped her hands to exercise rings and blindfolded her, all with her consent. Then, to her shock, she alleged, he snapped photographs of her naked and threatened to distribute the pictures if she revealed the relationship.
A spokesperson for Greitens didn’t respond to the Times request for comment. But Greitans has repeatedly denied allegations that he took the woman’s photograph without her consent and that he used the photo to blackmail her.
According to the Times, Greitens had been setting his political sights high, and even possibly eyeing the presidency.
