Judge keeps gag order on Drew Peterson’s former attorney

A Will County judge on Wednesday refused to lift a gag order placed on one of Drew Peterson’s former attorneys, who said, among other things, that he can show why his ex-client should get a new trial.

Peterson, the former Bolingbrook police officer whose murder case drew national attention and was the subject of a Lifetime channel movie, is trying to get a new trial.

He was convicted in 2012 for the murder of his third wife, Kathleen Savio, who was found dead in a bathtub in her home in 2004.

But he is no longer represented by attorney Joel Brodsky, who now is fighting his own legal battles.

Brodsky will be back in Will County court Dec. 5 to face a contempt of court charge. On Wednesday, he was seeking to lift a gag order that was imposed in 2022 and was sought by Peterson’s current attorneys to stop him from talking about the case.

“Am I barred from talking to the press and saying Peterson deserves a new trial?” Brodsky asked at one point in the hearing, saying there was “an error of constitutional magnitude” in the trial that has yet to be revealed.

Judge Jessica Colon-Sayre, however, appeared impatient with Brodsky, repeatedly telling him that he was not presenting any new cause for lifting a gag order that has been upheld by a state appellate court.

“You need to focus with me here on the new issues that you think I should consider to vacate the gag order,” Colon-Sayre said to Brodsky. “There are none.”

Brodsky said he wanted assurance that the gag order applied only to statements that violated attorney-client privilege, which he said was guidance provided in the appellate court ruling.

Colon-Sayre did not disagree but told Brodsky he would have to use his knowledge and experience as an attorney as well as “common sense” to determine what statements could violate attorney-client privilege.

“Err on the side of caution,” the judge told Brodsky. “Motion is denied. You’re the only one who can really understand what that is. You’re the attorney. Mr. Peterson is the client.”

The gag order was issued after Brodsky in a broadcast interview suggested that he knew what happened to Stacy Peterson and was considering revealing her fate.

Drew Peterson has not been charged in connection with the disappearance of Stacy Peterson, his fourth and last wife, who has never been found since she vanished in 2007.

Peterson, now 70 years old, has remained a public figure not only because of the notoriety of his case and but for offshoot developments such as the Brodsky predicament. In 2016, Peterson was convicted for trying to hire a hitman to kill Will County State’s Attorney James Glasgow, who oversaw the Savio case.