Former FBI Agent Pleads Guilty To Tampering With Evidence

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A former FBI agent who was tapped to help investigate Missouri’s governor pleaded guilty on March 23 to tampering with evidence, deciding not to go to trial on seven counts.

Former FBI agent William Don Tisaby, left, is accompanied by attorney Jermaine Wooten as he turns himself in at St. Louis Police headquarters in St. Louis, Mo., on June 17, 2019. (Robert Cohen/St. Louis Post-Dispatch via AP)

William Don Tisaby, 69, now a private investigator, was hired by St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner to help probe Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens over an alleged invasion of privacy. Greitens resigned in 2018 after the investigation was opened.

Tisaby was indicted on seven felonies, including perjury and evidence tampering, in 2019.

Tisaby acknowledged in the plea deal that he said in a deposition that certain documents did not exist when, in fact, they did, Robert Russell, the special prosecutor in the case, told reporters outside the courthouse in St. Louis after the deal was reached.

“He’s admitting to hiding or at least testifying that the notes that Ms. Gardner gave to him were not given to him by testifying that he did not take any notes, when in fact he did take notes on those notes Ms. Gardner gave him,” Russell said.

Tisaby also took notes from an interview with a witness and sent them to Gardner but falsely testified that he never did.

Gardner is set to face a disciplinary hearing soon for allegedly hiding details about the probe into Greitens from members of her team.

Russell declined to put himself in Gardner’s shoes but said prosecutors “have an ethical obligation to correct and make sure the record is clear” regarding documents and that they should correct witnesses who offer false information.

The deal means Tisaby, who was facing serious prison time, will not serve any time in jail. He will serve one year of probation and must pay court costs.

Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens, right, during a rally in St. Charles, Mo., in a file image. (Whitney Curtis/Getty Images)

“I think we’ve reached an appropriate resolution for Mr. Tisaby in this case based on what occurred,” Russell said, adding that it was important to make sure anybody attached to law enforcement is held accountable for being untruthful.

Jermaine Wooten, a lawyer for the defendant, told reporters that he and his colleagues were prepared to go to trial but Tisaby wanted to put the case behind him because of his age and health.

“I think it was just more of an issue of just negligence in this matter. It was a slew of documents that he had and he just went into that deposition not prepared. There was no malice in this man’s heart,” Wooten said, adding that no one instructed his client to hide the existence of the documents.

But Russell said the defendant admitted to purposefully shielding evidence. ” I think he just didn’t want anybody to see what he had done,” Russell said.

The investigation in question was looking into whether Greitens snapped a picture of a woman at his house in 2015. The alleged picture has never been found.

Greitens, who is running for a U.S. Senate seat, said on Steve Bannon’s show that the guilty plea was “a great victory.”

“The corrupt former FBI agent, William Tisaby, pled guilty,” he said. “What everyone recognizes now is what we said from the beginning, is that this was a criminal witch hunt against me.”