Peterson urges judge to toss out illegal gun case

Likening it to prosecuting a traveling President Obama if he neglected to get his passport stamped, attorneys for Drew Peterson urged a judge Tuesday to toss out an illegal gun charge against the retired Bolingbrook police sergeant.

His defense team argued police officers are allowed to carry a semiautomatic rifle with a shortened barrel, even if the weapon is banned, which they maintain is also unconstitutional.

They cited case law to try to convince Will County Judge Richard Schoenstedt, but prosecutors countered any exemption was intended to protect police officers when they are off-duty by allowing them to carry a concealed handgun, even if they are outside the town they are sworn to serve and protect.

Oak Brook Police Officer Stephen Peterson recently testified for the prosecution that his infamous father brought two bags holding as many as three guns to stash at the son's North Aurora house Oct. 30, 2007.

That was days after Drew Peterson's fourth wife, Stacy, 23, vanished. State police raided the couple's Bolingbrook home that Nov. 1. Officer Stephen Peterson promptly handed the guns over to state police investigators.

"What Drew Peterson was doing that morning was transferring the weapon to his son," Assistant Will County State's Attorney John Connor said Tuesday. "That had nothing to do with his duties as a law enforcement officer."

Prosecutors charged Drew Peterson with the weapons violation in 2008 as the investigations into Stacy's disappearance and the mysterious March 2004 bathtub drowning death of third wife Kathleen Savio continued.

Officer Stephen Peterson was placed on paid leave Aug. 26 - three days after his testimony - for taking possession of his father's weapons. He is fighting the suspension, which marks the latest of more than one half dozen verbal, written and forced unpaid days off that he has received since April 2005.

Drew Peterson came to his son's defense in an Aug. 27 letter to the media in which he lambasted Oak Brook Police Chief Thomas Sheahan for unfairly persecuting his 31-year-old son because, as defense attorney Steven Greenberg put it, "the perceived sins of the father."

Greenberg urged Judge Schoenstedt to dismiss the illegal gun case because, he said, a different set of rules apply under the law to police officers.

"Prosecuting Drew Peterson for this is akin to prosecuting Barack Obama for not getting his passport stamped when he travels to a foreign country," Greenberg said outside of court. "It's absurd."

Schoenstedt is expected to rule Oct. 1.

Drew Peterson, 56, denies any wrongdoing in Stacy's disappearance. He has not been charged in that case. Stacy's disappearance sparked a renewed investigation in Savio's drowning death, later ruled a homicide.

Peterson was charged in May 2009. He remains held on a $20 million bond as prosecutors appeal a judge's pretrial ruling barring the majority of hearsay statements they argue helps prove Peterson's guilt.

Sheahan declined Tuesday to respond to Peterson's jailhouse letter, but a spokesman for Will County State's Attorney James Glasgow disputed the defendant's claims that his rights are being violated.

"Nothing can be further from the truth. In the history of jurisprudence, no criminal defendant's rights have ever been better protected than Drew Peterson's," said Charles Pelkie, citing lengthy pretrial hearings involving the large defense team. "They have yet to be able to convince a judge or appellate court panel to ignore the evidence in this case."

Pelkie added: "He has a First Amendment right to write letters and the press has a right to print them. It is what it is."