Illinois wife-killer cop pleads not guilty in murder-for-hire plot

[March 04, 2015]  CHICAGO (Reuters) - A former Chicago-area police officer who is serving a 38-year term for the 2004 murder of his third wife, pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to charges that he tried to hire a hitman to kill the prosecutor who got him convicted.

In a hearing before Randolph County Circuit Judge Richard Brown, Drew Peterson, 61, waived his right to a preliminary hearing, where prosecutors would have had to reveal the evidence and demonstrate probable cause, according to a news release from the Illinois Attorney General's office.

Rob Lowe played Peterson in a Lifetime television network movie about the case, called "Untouchable."

Peterson's defense attorney Lucas Liefer said he and his client waived the hearing so that the public would not hear details ahead of trial, the Chicago Tribune reported. Liefer did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment.

The murder-for-hire case is being tried in Randolph County, Illinois, about 45 miles south of St. Louis, Missouri, where Peterson is an inmate at the Menard Correctional Center.

The formal charges are solicitation of murder for hire and solicitation of murder.

Prosecutors used court-ordered wiretaps in the last months of 2014 to develop the case against Peterson, who they said tried to contract someone to murder Will County State's Attorney James Glasgow.

Peterson railed against Glasgow at his February 2013 sentencing hearing and the prosecutor called him a cold-blooded murderer.

Peterson's third wife, Kathleen Savio, was found dead in a bathtub in 2004, during a contentious divorce. Her death was at first ruled accidental, but suspicions were raised when Peterson's fourth wife, Stacy Peterson, disappeared in 2007.

(Reporting by Fiona Ortiz; Editing by Bernard Orr)

[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.]

Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.