Mar 14, 2008 5:02 pm US/Central
Drew Peterson To Appear In Court In Wife's Case
CHICAGO (AP) ―
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Former police Sgt. Drew Peterson stands in front of the garage of his home in Bolingbrook, Ill., on Nov. 17, 2007.
Scott Olson/Getty Images
For months, Drew Peterson has been an official suspect in the disappearance of his wife and the subject of speculation about the drowning death of one of his previous wives.
But since Stacy Peterson vanished in late October and authorities reopened the investigation into the 2004 death of Kathleen Savio, Peterson has not set foot in a courtroom in either case.
That is expected to change Monday. At 9:30 a.m. Peterson is scheduled to appear in a Joliet courtroom on a matter concerning the disappearance of his wife. The issue on which he will appear is relatively minor -- the planned return of his cars, computers and other items that police seized as part of their investigation of his wife's disappearance -- but it may nevertheless be significant.
"The judge wants to advise him that he's giving up some rights to challenge the (validity of the) photographs," said Peterson's attorney, Joel Brodsky, who said it would not be uncommon to allow an attorney to handle such a matter without requiring the client to attend.
"I guess if Drew is ever charged it's potentially a death (penalty) case, the judge wants to make sure that anything he stipulates to he knows what he's doing," said Brodsky, who added that Peterson is looking forward to his court appearance.
Peterson has denied he was involved in his wife's disappearance, which authorities are investigating as a possible homicide, contending that he believes she ran off with another man. He has also denied involvement in the death of Savio, who was found dead in her bathtub in 2004. Brodsky said he doesn't believe Peterson will be charged in either case.
Monday's scheduled hearing follows last month's order by a Will County judge that the Illinois State Police return the items that officers seized in a search of the home of the now-retired Bolingbrook police sergeant.
But Judge Richard Schoenstedt imposed the condition that Peterson agree not to challenge the validity of photographs of the property, copies of hard drives from the computers or documents related to the items at any future trial should he or someone else be charged.
Brodsky said he sees no problems in stipulating to any of the conditions laid out by the judge on any of the property. The one possible problem concerned the hard drives and late Friday, Brodsky said he and the state's attorney's office had agreed that authorities would keep the original hard drives and turn over duplicates of the hard drives, called mirrored hard drives, to Peterson.
Brodsky also wants to discuss the revocation by the state police of Peterson's Firearm Owner's Identification (FOID) Card. In Illinois a valid FOID card is needed to posses guns and in his order the judge stipulated that Peterson needed a valid card for his guns to be returned.
(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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