Pedroli: Screenshots prove Greitens staff used Confide for public business

Mark Pedroli, the attorney for Ben Sansone of the Sunshine Project, said he has evidence that members of former Gov. Eric Greitens’ staff discussed public business on a message-deleting app, after the governor’s office turned over screen shots of text conversations.

The screenshots show excerpts of a conversation between Brad Green and Jeff Earl. Both were deputy legislative directors in Greitens’ office at the time. Green asked about a document labeled “PDMP – Talking Points,” saying that he “could not see (Earl’s) edits very well on confide.”

Pedroli says the screenshots provide proof that public business was discussed on the app, and that those conversations were unlawfully destroyed by Confide in violation of the Sunshine Law.

“I’m going to go back to the judge and ask for more because I’m not getting the whole dialogue, I’m just getting conversations where the word ‘Confide’ was used,” Pedroli told ABC 17 News Wednesday.

Pedroli discovered the screenshots Wednesday among several documents that were turned over by the governor’s office Friday. On Monday, Cole County Circuit Judge Jon Beetem said that Pedroli needed to prove that records of conversations existed in order to advance the case.

A subpoena to Confide Inc., aa New York-based company, is the next task for the plaintiffs, according to Pedroli, in hope of recovering conversations connected to the 20 former members of Greitens’ staff who had Confide.