MISSOURI: GOP Gov Signs Anti-Revenge Porn Bill Hours Before Leaving Office Over His Alleged Revenge Porn

The Associated Press reports:

Hours before he was to leave office, Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens on Friday signed into law a measure that makes it a crime to try to blackmail a person using a private sexual image — the same allegation that led to his downfall.

The new “revenge porn” law makes it a felony to threaten the nonconsensual dissemination of such an image by coercing another person to refrain from an action. The governor has been accused of taking a nonconsensual photo of a partially nude woman with whom he had an affair in 2015 and warning her he would distribute it if she ever spoke of their encounter.

He has acknowledged having the affair but denied criminal wrongdoing and refused to directly answer questions about whether he took the photo. Greitens cannot be charged under the law because it was not in effect at the time. But a special prosecutor still is weighing whether to refile an invasion-of-privacy charge against Greitens under a different law.