The Western District Court of appeals is being asked to decide if the refusal of former Gov. Eric Greitens' office to provide cellphone numbers in response to a public records request was a violation of the state's Sunshine Law.
St. Louis attorney Ben Sansone filed the appeal this week. It comes after Cole County Presiding Judge Jon Beetem ruled in December in a public records access case stretching back more than three years involving Greitens and his staff's use of Confide, an app that erases text messages once they're read.
Filed in December 2017 against Greitens - who resigned in 2018 - and his office, Beetem had ruled in July 2019 that Confide does not create government records that can be retained, according to the Associated Press. That was part of the reason Beetem dismissed claims Greitens' office had used the app to avoid the Sunshine Law.
However, that still left the issue of whether Greitens' office had appropriately denied to disclose "mobile phone numbers used by the governor (sic)" in response to a public records request under the Sunshine Law by Sansone.
Beetem ruled: "That information, 'mobile phone numbers used by the governor (sic),' stored or retained by the Governor's office is without a question a public record as that term is used (in state law) as the Governor's office is a public governmental body and the requested numbers are in its possession."
The law cited by the office to exempt the records from disclosure does not actually do so, Beetem added.
"The cellphone numbers used by the governor, irregardless (sic) of their governmental or personal nature, are public records," he ruled.
However, Beetem annotated that statement with: "Virtually every policy argument made by the Governor's office as to why these numbers should be closed holds merit. However, changes to the law are the province of the legislature."
Beetem also ruled Greitens' and his office's conclusion that cellphone numbers used by the governor were closed records and was not a violation of the Sunshine Law.