The defense for Drew Peterson rested its case Friday after three inmates testified that the star witness in the murder-for-hire trial is an untruthful scam artist.
“He wasn’t truthful,” Jacob Bohannon said of Antonio “Beast” Smith, who wore a wire for authorities that allegedly captured Peterson’s attempts to arrange a hit on his nemesis, Will County State’s Attorney James Glasgow.
Bohannon was Smith’s accomplice in the 2010 attempted murder of a woman whose home they were robbing and is serving a 25-year sentence in that case, as well as a 10-year sentence on an unrelated conviction for home invasion.
“Sometimes (Smith) tells the truth, most of the time he wouldn’t,” Bohannon testified in the tiny Randolph County Courthouse, located on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River a few minutes away from Menard Correctional Center, where Peterson, 62, is serving a 38-year sentence for the murder of his third wife, Kathleen Savio.
Jurors listened to hours of secretly recorded conversations captured by a wire Smith was wearing for the FBI in November 2014, aided by a prosecution-prepared transcript to help them decipher the often difficult-to-understand conversations.
Prosecutors allege that Peterson — enraged by Glasgow’s successful prosecution — wanted the prosecutor dead because he believed Glasgow was obstructing his appeal. With Glasgow out of the picture, he believed his chances at getting his conviction tossed would be almost a lock, they said. He also feared that Glasgow would charge him in connection with the disappearance of his fourth wife, Stacy Peterson, who has been missing since 2007.
Drew Peterson’s lead attorney, Lucas Liefer, tried to discredit the recordings as unintelligible and nonsensical conversations recorded by a jailhouse snitch who other inmates view as a con artist.
Menard inmate Albert “Chino” Chavez testified that he used to hang out with Peterson at meals and in the prison yard until Smith returned to the prison in late 2014.
“Because they were running a scam,” he testified when asked why he no longer associated with Peterson and Smith. “(They were) trying to con some people.”
Another inmate, Jesus Padilla, said that when Smith was transferred back to Menard — after agreeing to wear the wire — he seemed different than he was before he left the downstate maximum-security prison. One clue was that Smith had a cellmate when he left Menard, but when he came back he was given a single cell, arousing suspicion that he might be cooperating with authorities.
“I really didn’t pay attention to him, I just tried to stay away from him,” Padilla said. “Certain things he was saying, certain things he was doing just did not mesh.”
Peterson, who elected not to testify, is being tried on charges of solicitation of murder and solicitation of murder for hire. Closing arguments in the case are scheduled for Tuesday.
Peterson, a former Bolingbrook police officer, made international headlines when his Stacy Peterson disappeared. That case prompted authorities to take another look at Savio’s 2004 death, which originally was ruled an accident after her body was found in her bathtub.
Peterson was convicted of Savio’s murder in 2012. At his sentencing hearing in early 2013, he raged against Savio’s family, the Illinois State Police and especially Glasgow. A recording of his comments was played Thursday for the jury in Randolph County.
“Mr. Glasgow, all aspects of my life have been destroyed,” Peterson said in 2013. “And I tell you this to give you greater cause for celebration, when you celebrate the fact that you perpetrated the largest railroad job in the history of this country.”
Smith testified that in October 2013, Peterson asked if he could find someone to kill Glasgow for him. Smith said he would think about it, though he testified that he had no intention of carrying out the plan.
The next year, after having been transferred to another prison, he sent letters to the Will County state’s attorney’s office alerting them to Peterson’s offer. That led to the involvement of the FBI, which provided the recording devices and ran the investigation.
The secret recordings, captured over two weeks in mid-November 2014, are the heart of the state’s case against Peterson. Much of Peterson’s conversation with Smith featured prison gossip, how to cook meals in their cells, sexual exploits, and their plans to hook up with a Mexican cartel and begin distributing drugs once they got out of prison.
But Peterson also appeared to give permission for the hit, and then to rejoice when Smith said he had called a relative to give him the go-ahead.
“So, how long before you think your uncle can take care of business?” Peterson asks in one recording.
Smith: “It’ll be done by Christmas, if, if you say, if you say.”
Peterson: “It’d be a nice Christmas present.”
Smith: “If you say it’s a green light.”
Peterson: “Go.”
Smith testified that he went to a phone in the prison yard and pretended to call to his uncle before returning to Peterson.
“I told him what you said, that it’s the green light on, that basically go ahead and kill him,” Smith says on the Nov. 15, 2014, recording. “That’s what you wanted, right? … It ain’t no turning back.”
“OK, all right. I’m in,” Peterson responds. “From the first time we talked about it, there was no turning back. … If I get some booze in here, we’ll celebrate that night.”‘
Glasgow testified that he has had death threats over the years from people he has convicted, but Peterson’s was taken very seriously.
“I know that Mr. Peterson previously committed murder, so when the threat is made against me, it’s real,” Glasgow testified Monday.
And although the tapes do not record Peterson explicitly ordering Smith to kill Glasgow, “the implication of murder was there,” Glasgow said. “Based on 36 years of experience in law enforcement, from my listening of the tape, it was clear to me there was going to be my demise.”
But Glasgow said he has no personal animosity toward the defendant, and he was dismissive when asked how he felt about Peterson.
“I’ve convicted 98 murderers,” he said. “He’s just one.”
Twitter @mwalberg1
