Officials hold meeting regarding Peterson appearance

<span>With Drew Peterson's preliminary court appearance on new murder-for-hire charges approaching, Randolph County officials held a meeting on Feb. 20 to discuss plans on how to handle the event.</span>

<span>"Honestly, the majority of the talk was how to handle and deal with the media," said Randolph County Commissioner Ronnie White, who attended the meeting on behalf of the county board. "The courtroom isn't big enough to handle them all, so there will be a lottery."</span>

<span>Randolph County Sheriff Shannon Wolff said officials will work out a system to run the lottery "if we need it."</span>

<span>"The plan is to have a lottery dependent on the amount of interested people who want to get into the courtroom," Wolff said.</span>

<span>Among those in attendance were former Will County Sheriff Paul Kaupas and his cousin, Ken Kaupas, a retired sheriff's department chief and former Illinois State Police captain. Both have experience in dealing with the media from Peterson's initial trial.</span>

<span>"Ken Kaupas was a big part of the planning for the original Peterson trial," Wolff said. "They provided us with a lot of useful information to put our plan together for our court proceedings.</span>

<span>"This amount of media attention will cause us to adjust our procedures a little bit. We will be reaching out to the media and the public prior to the preliminary hearing to inform them of what the changes will be."</span>

<span>Wolff said he hoped to release those changes soon.</span>

<span>"If anybody has any questions regarding parking procedures or security protocols, they can contact the Sheriff's Office," Wolff said. "We will get a plan out as soon as we can."</span>

<span>Also present for the meeting were Chester Police Chief Ryan Coffey, Randolph County State's Attorney Jeremy Walker, a representative from the Attorney General's office and several different office-holders, according to Wolff.</span>

<span>"It was a great meeting," Wolff said. "It gave us the information we needed to start planning for this. It would have been difficult to know what to plan for if we didn't have that meeting."</span>

<span>White cautioned that plans are still in the preliminary stages and "nothing is set in stone." The group is to meet again prior to Peterson's March 3 court appearance.</span>

<span>"It sounds like it will be a combined effort between the Randolph County Sheriff's Office, Chester Police Department, Department of Corrections, the Attorney General's office and the (Illinois) State Police have offered their help," White said.</span>

<span>Walker said Peterson's court-appointed defense attorney, Lucas Liefer, filed a speedy trial demand on Feb. 18.</span>

<span>"His attorney has filed a speedy trial demand, which means we have to try the case within 160 days of the filing," Walker said. "We have a jury availability in July and we're going to try for a July trial unless the defendant moves off his speedy trial demand."</span>

<span>Randolph County has jury availability five times per year, with the next coming at the end of March.</span>

<span>"At this point, we are planning for July," Walker said. "Will the defense be ready at that point? I can't comment on that."</span>

<span>Walker said the speedy trial demand isn't an unusual filing.</span>

<span>"It's a matter of due course in some cases," he said.</span>

<span>Peterson, 61, made his initial appearance at the Randolph County Courthouse on Feb. 9 on charges of one count of solicitation of murder for hire and one count of solicitation of murder, both Class X felonies.</span>

<span>The charges are related to an alleged plot to kill Will County State's Attorney Jim Glasgow, who prosecuted Peterson's murder case. According to the Attorney General's office, Peterson allegedly tried to orchestrate the plot between September 2013 and December 2014.</span>

<span>Peterson is being charged in Randolph County. The solicitation for murder charge carries a penalty of 15 to 30 years, while the solicitation of murder for hire carries a penalty of 20 to 40 years, according to Attorney General Lisa Madigan.</span>

<span>The former Bolingbrook police sergeant is currently serving a 38-year sentence at Menard Correctional Center after being convicted in 2012 for the 2004 murder of his third wife, 40-year-old Kathleen Savio.</span>

<span>He is also a suspect in the 2007 disappearance of his fourth wife, 23-year-old Stacy Peterson. Drew Peterson's original sentence has him behind bars until he is 93. It is currently on appeal.</span>

<span>"For the (Savio murder) pretrial, there were 81 media passes and 210 for the trial itself," White said. "(Randolph County officials) are thinking about appointing one person to coordinate the media and to run the lottery."</span>

<span>Wolff said that person will come from his office.</span>

<span>"We have limited space around the courthouse and it's better to have clear communication to the media as far as where they can be and what they can and can't do," he said. "It makes it easier on them and easier on us."</span>

<span>White said officials haven't ruled out charging the media for specific services in order to recoup some of the county's expenses.</span>

<span>"We have to provide employee parking still, so (Will County officials) said they were charging because the media brought their tractor-trailers," he said, referring to the original Peterson proceedings. "It was $500 a week for the media to park their semis.</span>

<span>"Media that was on the list to get a transcription of the proceedings paid a fee for that."</span>

<span>Wolff said the only things his office is handling in the Peterson case are security and logistics.</span>

"Questions regarding the case need to be directed to the Attorney General's office," he said.