Former stripper seeks pardon, using same argument as embattled governor

ST. LOUIS — A man convicted of invasion of privacy 19 years ago is asking Gov. Eric Greitens for a pardon, using the same argument that Greitens’ lawyers are using in the effort to dismiss the governor’s own felony indictment. In 1999, Paul Henreid was convicted of invasion of privacy in St. Louis for secretly filming sex partners. Henreid’s attorney, Al Watkins, said Monday that it would be “hypocritical” for Greitens to reject the pardon request.

“What’s good for the governor should be good for the gander,” Watkins said.

Several email, text and phone messages left with spokespeople for Greitens were not immediately returned.

A St. Louis grand jury last week indicted the Republican governor on invasion of privacy. Greitens is accused of taking a compromising photo without permission of the woman with whom he was having an extramarital affair in 2015, before he was elected governor. 

The charge says Greitens knowingly took a photograph of a woman in a “state of full or partial nudity without the knowledge and consent” of that woman, CBS affiliate KMOV reports. The charge also alleges the photograph was taken “in a place where a person would have a reasonable expectation of privacy, and the defendant subsequently transmitted the image contained in the photograph in a manner that allowed access to that image via a computer.”

Henreid’s trial attorneys argued that the law was aimed at “peeping Toms,” not someone engaged in a consensual relationship.

Greitens’ attorneys made a similar argument in the motion to dismiss, writing that the law “applies to situations such as voyeurs or peeping toms who take photographs in locations such as restrooms, tanning beds, locker rooms, changing rooms, and bedrooms. The law does not apply to the participants in sexual activity.”

Henreid was a law student and male stripper at the time of his indictment and went by the last name Henroid at the time. He is now a lawyer and documentary filmmaker living in Walnut Creek, California. Watkins, his attorney, also represents the ex-husband of the woman who had the affair with Greitens.

The woman said in audio secretly recorded by her then-husband in March 2015 that Greitens took a photo without her consent during a sexual encounter in the basement of his St. Louis home, and threatened blackmail if she ever spoke about the affair.

Greitens has denied blackmail but has declined to say if he took a photo. 

Henreid was initially indicted on four counts: Invasion of privacy, promoting child pornography, possession of child pornography and child abuse. The child porn and abuse charges alleged that the victim was 17 at the time of filming.

He eventually pleaded guilty to the invasion of privacy charge, and the other counts were dismissed. He was sentenced to 30 days of shock jail time.

Washington University law professor Peter Joy said Henreid’s guilty plea after the other charges were dropped offers a distinction between the two cases.

“But still, what he pled to is what’s been alleged to occur with the governor,” Joy said. “So for consistency’s sake, one would think the pardon would be granted. But no one should ever make assumptions about politicians being consistent.”