Drew Peterson's Attorneys Now Fighting Each Other
By Chuck Sudo in News on Sep 25, 2012 1:30PM
Anyone who watched Drew Peterson’s legal team trip over each other to get close to the phalanx of microphones after their client was convicted of murdering his third wife Kathleen Savio three weeks ago had an idea of their ability to work as a team.
Now the infighting has gone public. Attorney Steve Greenberg released a scathing 15-page letter Monday accusing Peterson’s lead attorney Joel Brodsky of “single-handedly” losing the trial and threatened to sue Brodsky for defamation if he didn’t receive an apology and a retraction of comments made by Brodsky after the trial Greenberg said were critical of him. (Greenberg’s letter is embedded below.)
Greenberg blamed Peterson’s conviction on Brodsky’s decision to call Kathleen Savio’s divorce attorney Harry Smith to the stand. Smith testified that Peterson’s missing fourth wife Stacy told him that Drew Peterson murdered Savio. The jury in the trial pointed to Smith’s testimony as the moment that sealed Peterson’s conviction.
Greenberg was seen objecting to Brodsky’s decision to place Smith on the stand during a recess in the trial. In the letter, Greenberg called Brodsky’s decision “one of the greatest mistakes in the history of jurisprudence.”
"You wafted the greatest case, by ignorance, obduracy, and ineptitude. Your effort to blame me is suggestive of a six-year-old child changing the rules of the game when he falls behind, before taking his ball home, loudly declaring that his opponent cheated instead of appreciating he was just out of his league.…
“Take credit, for you single-handedly may have put Drew away for the rest of his life.”
Brodsky, who’s been nearly as cocky and flamboyant as Peterson throughout all this, wouldn’t comment on Greenberg’s letter. But in a public statement announcing on Sept. 11 he announced Greenberg was fired because he wasn’t adequately prepared for the trial, didn’t properly question witnesses and spent too much time “hanging out in the press room.”
Coming from Brodsky, who hadn’t met a microphone he didn’t like, that’s rich.
Greenberg is the fifth attorney to leave Peterson’s legal team since 2009. Attorney Joseph “The Shark” Lopez confirmed that Darryl Goldberg left the case. Goldberg was in charge of much of the medical and forensic-related testimony and stayed out of the media glare the rest of the legal team wore designer sunglasses to greet.
Peterson, in a letter to the Sun-Times, said he’s sticking with Brodsky and called for an investigation into Greenberg’s actions during and after the trial, including a post-trial event he attended for Will County State’s Attorney James Glasgow.
Lopez told the Tribune the infighting among the Peterson legal team is nothing more than a “lover’s quarrel.” Let’s be frank: this group of lawyers lost a murder trial based on the testimony of someone who said someone told him that Drew Peterson murdered Kathleen Savio.
There’s enough blame to be shared by all of them.