SHOCK JOCK OUTS GREITENS ACCUSERS: Talk show celebs highlight felony love scandal

Radio Daze

 

ST. LOUIS, Mo 3/4/18 (Feature) -- A shock jock known for racist rants has outed the St. Charles couple who accused Missouri Governor Eric Greitens of marital infidelity and blackmail.

Discussed on social media, their identities have been kept from news media.

"It's Katrina Anne Sneed -- S N E E D," KQQZ 1190 AM radio talk show host Bob Romanik announced Feb. 23, about the woman with whom Greitens admitted having an affair.  (Starts at 26:00 here; Katrina "Kitty" Sneed photo below).

"His name is Philip Taylor Sneed, also known as 'Moon'," Romanik continued, about her ex-husband.  As Moon Valjean, "he's a radio celebrity and producer of The Rizzuto Show on The Point," St. Louis rock station KPNT, FM 105.7. 

Sneed/Valjean is also a musician well-known in alternative rock circles. He did not respond to requests for comment or interview from this publication. 

Romanik repeated the Sneeds' identities several times during the nearly 50-minute call-in broadcast.  "I'm the only one in radio or television with the guts to bring these names forward," he said.

Moon Lighting

 

Records on Casenet indicate Philip and Katrina Sneed finalized their divorce in March 2016, one year after the affair and nine months before Greitens was elected Missouri's 56th Governor. 

 

Philip Sneed allegedly recorded his ex-wife confessing to the affair without her knowledge.  St. Louis television station KMOV broke the story in January, after he gave them the recording. 

Tawdry details have gripped public attention since, including blindfolds, bound hands, and revenge porn: Greitens allegedly blackmailed Katrina Sneed with a compromising photo he took without her consent, a charge the Governor has repeatedly denied.   

St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner indicted Greitens for felony privacy invasion last month.  In court filings, she uses the initials K.S. and P.S. to describe the Sneeds.

"It's not K.S.," Romanik insisted, giving the couple's name and address in St. Charles.  "Why can Greitens name come out?  Why can the Greitens family go through all this crap, and the Sneed family not go through it?" 

He then directed a stream of n-word-laced invective at Gardner, who is black.  

Broken promise?

Romanik told listeners he decided to out the Sneeds because Greitens "hasn't had his day in court. You people need to know the backgrounds of all the people involved." 

A broken promise from St. Louis attorney Al Watkins, who is representing Philip Sneed, helped motivate Romanik's decision.  Romanik alleged Watkins promised an exclusive interview if he would keep quiet about the Sneeds' identities.  

"My good friend Al Watkins, the great attorney from St. Louis...said 'Hey Bob...Would you not say anything until after the indictment?' And I said, 'Al, out of respect for you, a great attorney, no I won't.' Then Al said, 'Well, I'll give you the exclusive.'" 

But after hearing Watkins on The McGraw Show, another St. Louis AM broadcast, "I don't think I got the exclusive," Romanik continued. "I lived up to my word. I didn't say anything until after the indictment."

During McGraw Milhaven's eight-minute interview (11:10, 2-23-18, Hour 4 at this link), Watkins reflected on the scandal with colorful and off-color commentary. 

Bro-cast News

 

Al Watkins, Bob Romanik, and Philip Sneed/Moon Valjean are among the St. Louis area's most outspoken -- and outlandish -- radio personalities. 

A musician with alternative rock bands Story of the Year, Greek Fire, and a punk rock band from Los Angeles called Goldfinger, Sneed/Valjean (above, left) co-hosts The Rizzuto Show, where listeners get "Crap on Celebrities," a "Craigslist Freak of the Week," and a daily competition between real and fake breasts.

 

Known as "The Grim Reaper of Radio," Romanik regularly draws the ire of local and national media for his jaw-dropping use of the n-word and anti-establishment antics. 

"Racist, obscene, and a candidate for the Illinois State Senate," the St. Louis Post-Dispatch opined about him last week. Broadcasting from Belleville, Illinois in the metro-East region of St. Louis, Romanik announced his Senate campaign dressed in a suit and tie styled after the US flag. 

 

"I'm tired of the culture of corruption in St. Clair County," he told the Belleville News-Democrat during an earlier campaign for State Representative. 

 

"Self-centered, egotistical, and a self-proclaimed expert in all matters," Al Watkins -- who did not respond to a request for comment from this publication -- is also "a radio personality," explains his law firm, St. Louis-based Kodner Watkins. 

 

On Watkins' Word, he "offers blunt commentary in a fashion devoid of bedside manner," that radio show's website says.   
 

Watkins hit Greitens' tainted waters with a splash, after he recorded an attorney from the Governor's office asking questions about the scandal before it broke. 

"Our office heard that Al Watkins had been shopping around a story," Lucinda Luetkemeyer emailed reporters, after the lawyer-broadcaster sent the St. Louis Post-Dispatch a recording of their conversation he made without her knowledge. 

"In the recording, Luetkemeyer asks Watkins several questions about the kind of story that might emerge," the P-D reported. "Watkins said he did not tell Luetkemeyer that he was recording their conversation," a practice legal under Missouri law. 

Watkins' Words

 

Watkins' McGraw Show observations added another, less truculent shock-jock dimension to the Gubernatorial scandal.   

"I'm going to say this as brazenly and as candidly as possible:  My client doesn't give a rat's rear end about whether the Governor remains Governor, whether he steps down, whether he's impeached, whether he's indicted, whether the case is dismissed, whether he's convicted, whether he's acquitted," Watkins said.  "His goal is to protect the interest of his family. Part of the family is his former spouse, the mother of his children, with whom he co-parents. 

 

"He really, genuinely just wants to get this guy, who decimated his marriage, his circle of friends, and family members, in his rear-view mirror." 

 

A venereal disease comparison highlighted Watkins' observation about whether or not Greitens had been candid with his attorneys about the privacy-invading photo at the heart of the indictment. 

 

Is there -- or isnt' there -- such a photo?

 

"There's a very important lesson here," Watkins told McGraw Milhaven. "You know, when you get the burning sensation when you have a flow, it's time to go to the urologist.

 

"When you do that, you've got to be honest with your urologist, or interestingly, the burning sensation will continue. 

 

"It's the same thing with lawyers.  You have to be forthcoming with your lawyers."

Milhaven's question about prosecutor Kim Gardner's spokesperson, Susan Ryan, prompted another offbeat comparison. Ryan told reporters the Governor asked her boss for a "secret meeting" -- a move that, if true, was "the functional equivalent of Helen Keller with a rake on a golf course," Watkins said.  "I don't mean to be derogatory" to the vision or hearing impaired. 

 

"But that is ridiculous." 

-- Mike Martin