What to know about Sheena Chestnut Greitens and her allegations against Eric Greitens
A sworn affidavit by former Missouri first lady Sheena Chestnut Greitens that accused her ex-husband, former Gov. Eric Greitens, of domestic violence and abuse has sparked calls for him to drop out of the Republican primary for U.S. Senate in Missouri.
The affidavit, filed as part of a custody dispute, included allegations that Eric Greitens had hit his children, tugged his toddler by the hair and thrown Sheena Greitens to the ground. His campaign spokesman denied the allegations and called them politically motivated.
Sheena Greitens issued a statement Tuesday saying she stood by her allegations and wouldn’t make any other comments outside of the courtroom.
Here’s more about her background and the allegations of abuse.
Academic career
Greitens, 39, got her undergraduate degree from Stanford University in 2005, where she majored in political science. After graduating, she went to Oxford University’s St. Antony’s College on a Marshall Scholarship and received a Masters degree in international relations in 2007. She then attended Harvard University, where she earned her PhD in government 2013 with a dissertation about coercive institutions and state violence under authoritarian governments.
She began teaching at the University of Missouri in 2015, where she became faculty co-director for its Institute of Korean Studies. She continued there until 2020, when she took a job at the University of Texas at Austin as a tenured professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. She serves as the director of the school’s Asia Policy Program.
Along with her teaching, she’s been an associate in research at Harvard’s Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies since 2013 and was a non-resident fellow at the Brookings Institute from 2014 to 2020. She was also the Jeane Kirkpatrick Visiting Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, another Washington, D.C. based think tank.
Greitens is an expert in American national security, East Asia, authoritarian politics and foreign policy. She has written several papers and is often cited in news and academic articles about foreign policy issues in East Asia and has testified in front of Congress as an expert witness twice. She has published one book, Dictators & Their Secret Police: Coercive Institutions & State Violence. Her second book, Politics of the North Korean Diaspora, is set to be released this year and she has already turned in a manuscript for her third book.
Her work as first lady
As first lady, Greitens focused on children’s issues and Missouri’s relationship with Asian nations.
In 2017, the first lady and the governor co-led a trade mission to China and South Korea. The delegation traveled to Beijing, Shanghai, and Seoul. The mission led to an agreement with South Korean officials to increase cooperation on creating jobs through business start ups.
She ran an initiative involving multiple agencies to advance reforms in foster care, adoption and child abuse prevention. Missouri joined the National Electronic Interstate Compact Enterprise, aimed at tamping down adoption bureaucracy.
Colleen Polak, director of legal services for Voices for Children in St. Louis, told St. Louis Public Radio in 2018 how Greitens had invited advocates for children to the governor’s mansion soon after moving in.
“It was very remarkable,” Polak told the radio station. “She basically asked us what’s working well and what are some of the challenges and barriers facing the children that we are working with, and what do you think me and my husband can do to help?”
Twitter presence
Greitens is active on Twitter, where she released a statement Tuesday saying she stood by her allegations against her ex-husband and would not be making any further comments outside of the courtroom.
More often she tweets about foreign policy, specifically China. In the past month, she has tweeted mostly about the war in Ukraine and China, particularly China’s response to the war. As an expert in authoritarianism, she’s also commented on how Putin is handling the war.
She largely limits her tweets to foreign policy, does not weigh in on national political issues and rarely posts about her personal life.
What she says happened
Sheena Greitens’ affidavit, filed on Monday in Boone County Circuit Court, alleges Eric Greitens knocked her down, confiscated her cell phone and threatened her into continued silence. She also alleges Eric Greitens struck their 3-year-old child and pulled him by his hair.
“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 his hair,” the affidavit says.
In 2018, allegations surfaced that Eric Greitens had taken a compromising photo of his hairdresser during an extra-marital affair. An investigation by the Republican-controlled General Assembly also revealed allegations of sexually violent behavior, including that Greitens tied a woman to a pull-up bar in his basement and later forced her to perform oral sex on him.
Greitens denied those allegations but ultimately left office on June 1, 2018, as lawmakers appeared willing to impeach him.
In the affidavit, Sheena Greitens alleges Eric Greitens, in January 2021, admitted to her that he had taken the photo that led to an invasion of privacy indictment against him during the 2018 scandal.
Sheena Greitens alleges that after Eric Greitens admitted taking the photo, he said she would be exposed to “legal jeopardy” if she ever told anyone, even family members or a therapist. Sheena Greitens said she believed him because of the extent of his influence in Missouri.
The affidavit says Eric Greitens in spring and early summer 2018 repeatedly threatened to kill himself unless Sheena Greitens provided him with “specific public political support” and that multiple people intervened to limit his access to firearms at least three times – in February, April and May 2018.
Greitens’ campaign has denied the allegations.
What happens next?
The Greitens custody battle in Missouri is ongoing. Sheena Greitens’ allegations came as part of her effort to move the custody battle from Missouri to Texas. That decision will ultimately be up to a judge in Missouri and it is not clear whether a ruling against Greitens to move the case to Texas would affect Greitens’ candidacy.
Sheena Greitens wants the legal proceedings to occur in Texas. She says in her affidavit that their two children attend school in Texas, their social lives are centered there and, in alleging domestic violence, she says Texas courts are better situated to protect her and the children.
A hearing is set for May 27 in Boone County.
This story was originally published March 23, 2022 at 3:06 PM.
