The Dana Pretzer Show on Scared Monkeys Radio - Tuesday, February 10,

2009

Drew Peterson and Joel Brodsky discuss Drew’s engagement to Christina Raines

PRETZER: You’ve got an announcement.

PETERSON: Which announcement is that? My fiancée who left the home; she’s back.

PRETZER: OK. So let’s make this perfectly clear. What was announced in the
mainstream media and on cable TV shows last week as a PR stunt--and we’ll get
into that in a little bit—the gal that left your house, you’re saying she is back.

PETERSON: She’s now back, yes.

PRETZER: That is certainly breaking news and if you’re just tuning in, Drew Peterson
and Joel Brodsky are here and I want to start with Joel, Drew, if that’s OK? You got
slammed pretty hard in the media last week Joel, or the week before or whatever it
was. Basically, you were accused of orchestrating an engagement between Drew
and the young lady and it was something that I’d like you to address right now.

BRODSKY: Yeah, it was very upsetting to me. I’d never even met Chrissy—Christina
Raines. I’d never met her before this evening and I actually advised Drew, and this
is probably the only time anybody will ever hear what my advice to a client is, I
actually advised Drew that it was a bad idea for him to get engaged at this point in
time and it was certainly a bad idea to have this girl—young lady—move in with
him. So to be accused of orchestrating any type of publicity stunt involving this
engagement, I was very taken aback at. It was simply untrue and it was very
upsetting for me when I heard it. We later found out, or I just found out what
happened which is…we’ll get into I suppose, but it’s very disconcerting.

PRETZER: We’ll get into that in a few minutes. Drew, if you could…I’m sure there’s
times that you wish you don’t say anything, but I think you can feel fairly
comfortable on my program explaining just what happened. I know you were on TV
the night before and all of a sudden, the next day we’re hearing reports of police
cars and father-in-laws and all sorts of crazy things. What really happened?

PETERSON: What happened was she was at work and she went ahead and heard me
make some comments, off-the-cuff comments, joking around with the television
show, the CBS people and that I was really dismissive with women. If I didn’t like
them I would move on and trade them in or whatever and basically they didn’t play
the whole thing. As usual, when you tape something it gets cut up and turned
around and twisted and that’s what happened here. And then all of a sudden there
was like a…everybody in her family, there was TV producers, there was lawyers,
there was other family members from Kathleen were there , friends and family and
it was like an intervention. Everybody was there trying to get her off of me, actually
and she was very upset. Her father was there and he doesn’t like the relationship
and he was doing what he could. He threatened her with, if she didn’t go home with
him that night he would disown her, that type of thing. Next thing you know she’s
freaking out. Next thing you know she’s in New York going on television saying that
it was a publicity stunt—the engagement, when actually it was very real. The only
thing that was not real about the whole engagement was the ring I gave her and the
ring I gave her was only a temporary one. You still there?

PRETZER: I’m still here.

PETERSON: So, I gave her a ring that really wasn’t that good but she did ask me to
marry her five or six times and I agreed and we were in fact, for real, engaged.

PRETZER: I want to stick with Drew for a second Joel. You’ve known her, Chrissy, for
some time and her father, have you not?

PETERSON: Right. When she was fifteen years old, she’s twenty-four now, so I guess
nine years ago. She was just a kid who was raised by a single parent so she got
herself into some trouble now and then and I was just involved with the family,
bringing her home. That type of thing.

PRETZER: Joel Brodsky, attorney for Drew Peterson, again the mainstream media,
the book people, the lawyers, everyone jumps on this story like a bird on a bug, for
lack of a better term. It’s hardly even cold, as we like to say sometimes in this
business, before everyone starts to get involved and you talk about a young twenty-
four girl who could be easily influenced by everyone, and Drew admits himself he
probably said some things the night before on TV that he shouldn’t have said that
maybe scared her or whatever. Let’s talk about that: the media and how they
jumped on this story.

BRODSKY: That’s what I found out tonight. I really wanted to ask Chrissy why she
said that. She explained to me that these people from a couple of the morning
shows had been on her for literally three days. There was one girl she said—I forgot
the name of the girl—from one of the shows that literally had been with her
practically for three days straight, while she was at work , feeding her, telling her
things, giving her copies of transcripts, watching news with her, just trying to get
her to come on their show and then all these other people that Drew mentioned
were also talking to her and it’s no wonder that you go through this traumatic
breakup of your relationship, or being pulled out of his house where you were
comfortable , thrown on an airplane to New York, get a few hours sleep, up at four
o’clock in the morning, five o’clock in makeup, five-thirty on the set, and it’s no
wonder she looked like a deer caught in the headlights when she was on that show
and it was no wonder she was a little bit confused about what she was saying. So, I
don’t blame her. She made a mistake. She basically confused a couple of things she
overheard and just didn’t know what she was really saying as opposed to… And
that’s why it happened and I can understand that. Certainly, I’ve seen how these
people operate so I can understand how it happened and I don’t bear any grudge.
She’s setting the record straight now and that’s great and hopefully the real story or
at least the correct story will get out there. And the correct story is her and Drew
are engaged. They’re eventually going to get married and go on with their lives as
best they can and that’s the real story here.

PRETZER: Drew Peterson, you’re no stranger to having fifteen hundred cameras

stuck in your face. You can’t even go out and blow your nose or fart in a windstorm
without somebody making a story about it. All of a sudden you’ve got this young gal
now. You’re engaged. You’re trying to have some sort of semblance of privacy, I
assume. Are you two talking about this – that you know as soon as this gets out
tonight those cameras are going to be all over you again.

PETERSON: Well, we’re just basically setting up some sort of a game plan where we
get the story out to one set of people and one group—different than you, of course
—you’re getting a first exclusive here. We want to get it out to one group and we’ll
tell the story once and hopefully it will die down. What we’re trying to do is have a
happy life together and raise our kids. In between us we’ve got eight kids and
there’ll be six at home so…we’re just trying to get through and scratch around and
make life like everybody else trying to do.

PRETZER: Joel Brodsky, when you see media coverage of this story and you’ll see
more media coverage of this story either tonight or tomorrow, the question will be,
immediately, not so much the focus on the engagement. What will be the purported
indictment of your client. That it’s coming, it’s coming, it’s coming, it’s coming.

BRODSKY: This is great. I’m the lawyer and I love talking about legal issues. I’m glad
I’m not talking about Drew’s private life. I’m not his relationship counselor. I’m his
lawyer. I think clearly there is nothing imminent. Watching the witnesses they call,
we get some feedback from some of the witnesses that have been before the grand
jury or been interrogated by the police we’re able to piece together what their
investigation is and where it’s going and there’s nothing imminent at all. They’re
just plodding along, for lack of a better word, with an investigation and trying to see
if they can put together a case. However they keep coming up against the same
fundamental flaws that they had in accusing Drew in the first place. Fundamental
flaw with the Kathleen Savio matter is that they cannot put Drew anywhere near
Kathy’s home during the time when she died. I don’t care how long they investigate;
they can’t do that so if you can’t do that, you can’t accuse him of killing her. Let
alone, you have to remember you have two pathologists who have different
opinions. We have pathologists; the original pathologist said it was an accident. So
they’re going to have a difficult time even proving that the death was anything but
an accident, which we still believe it was. As far as Stacy goes, there is not one
piece of forensic evidence that anything wrong happened regarding Stacy—nothing
—and without that they’re never going to be able to get to square one. So, I don’t
see anything happening regarding charging Drew ever. I really mean that and
people tend to say that I’m incorrect or that I’m being optimistic but I don’t believe
so. I think it’s a solid analysis of the facts.

PRETZER: Drew, you say yourself sometimes you’re your own worst enemy. You say
things that just don’t come out right or like you say, are edited or they take one
piece of a clip and obviously it makes you look bad. The media is going to try to do
this again and you know that…

PETERSON: The media does their best to keep me sinister. If they keep me sinister I
believe it sells better than some guy out there raising his kids. They try to keep me
as a sinister maniac all the time so it ain’t true.

PRETZER: When you deal with the media, and Chrissy obviously hasn’t, although
that’s not totally correct because she was swarmed by them. She’s going to get
swarmed by them again. Are you prepared for that?

PETERSON: Well, she doesn’t really have the necessary emotional tools to deal with
them and basically we are going to do what we can to protect her, to keep them
away from her, and basically give her tools to basically deflect them, and try to
keep them away from her.

PRETZER: Joel Brodsky, what’s the status of the gun charge?

BRODSKY: Actually, l was over at the Will County Courthouse today. The record on
appeal is being prepared by the clerk of the court. It’s pretty extensive and there
were some issues about some things that are sealed and that’s going to be
transmitted to the appellate court next month, in March and then the briefs have to
be written. So we’re still pretty confident we’re going to be upheld on appeal but it’s
going to be…obviously the state’s going to fight it but in the long run it’s nonsense
because we filed a cross-appeal on this federal law that says a police officer, retired
police officers and police officers are allowed to carry almost any type of weapon
and I think the appellate court is going to uphold that and say that Drew is immune.
In the first place, the charges should never be brought and that’s what we’re hoping
to get out of the appellate court, which would be a confirmation of the LEOSA law,
The Law Enforcement Officer’s Safety Act, that basically says that law enforcement
officers can carry almost any type of weapon anywhere in the States and therefore
Drew cannot be charged. He has immunity and we’re hoping that will be the result
of the appellate court decision.

PRETZER: Drew, I’m guessing, and this is just me speculating, that you’re going to
want to start over sometime. Does that mean a move from Bolingbrook?

PETERSON: I need to get away from here just because of the crazy people next door
to me. Today I’m walking home, Chrissy and I took the kids to the park, and my
stepbrother and a lot of people was on the front porch trying to take pictures of us
walking home and then we’re getting information that it was on Internet already
and they’re putting it out all over, pictures of us taking the kids to the park. It’s a
little bit much for anybody, I think.

PRETZER: When you sit back, and you say there’s eight children now. That’s a
bunch. That’s a full-time job for you just in itself. Are you looking at doing anything
else besides the parenting that you’re doing right now?

PETERSON: I’ve always had the dream to open another night club or another tavern
or something, some sort of restaurant. But with the economic times like they are
today, I’m really going to have to rethink that and maybe think about something
else because any business these days is kind of hard to start into. So, I’m thinking
about a lot of things and keeping my options open.

PRETZER: Joel Brodsky, attorney for Drew Peterson, I hate to harp on the media
again but this goes back and you’ve heard some of my commentaries on my web
page about this whole situation, about who is really looking for PR? Is it the morning
shows? Is it the hosts of the programs? Is it the publicity people? How do you, and
when you advise your client or clients, this doesn’t necessarily have to be Drew,
how do you keep a hold of this? Because it’s a different society today when it comes
to the media and these high profile cases even what it was five years ago, because
it’s now big time, big money and there’s a big audience for it out there that they’re
going to be on every story and yours will go on for a long time yet.

BRODSKY: You cannot imagine. You cannot comprehend. It’s hard for the average
person to imagine the competition and the pressure that these morning shows put
on people to appear. If one can beat out the other by thirty seconds it’s a big victory
to them. They do this every day. That’s why I’m not really offended or mad at
Chrissy for what happened. She, as Drew said, didn’t have, didn’t know what was
going on, didn’t understand what these people who try to pretend to be sincere with
her, pretend to be acting in her best interests, what they were all about. Now she
understands and I think she’ll be much better able to deal with it. Whatever you
thought about Drew’s relationship with Christina, the relationship they put her back
into when she left, when her father and these media people they took her out of
Drew’s home and sent her back to this apartment where she was living with this
guy, this other guy, Mike. This is a guy who would never allow her to have her own
checking account. He never…what was it Drew? He made her give her paychecks to
him. He would cut up her clothes when he was mad at her. This is the residence that
they sent her back to. Now that she realizes it…

PETERSON: He would come home drunk and not too long ago he’d come home
drunk and got in her face and sent her and two young children out in the cold at two
in the morning in winter. Because she wasn’t going to put up with him cornering her
and confronting her.
BRODSKY: I think now she understand that they’re really looking for a story and not
looking out for her best interests I think she grew a little bit and now she’ll be able
to understand what they’re all about here and be able to deal with them when
before she was basically, a deer caught in the headlights and didn’t know what was
going on with her. She’ll be able to deal with this high-pressure media a lot better in
the future.

PRETZER: Drew, and I appreciate you coming on tonight, you’re going to be doing
some media I’m sure about this. Are you going to be, and please don’t take this the
wrong way, are you going to be careful what you say? I know that’s easy for me to
say that.

PETERSON: Well, my thing is always you tell the truth all the time and you don’t
have to worry about what you’re saying. I’ve been known to be an obnoxious man
and I’ll concede to that but I’m fun loving by nature. I’m normally just trying to get a
laugh out of people. Will I watch what I say? I’ve been watching what I say a lot just
so I’m not offending anybody else and I’m sorry if I have.

DABA: Well you’re slipping a little bit because when I said that you had an
announcement, I thought that you were going to come on and say you just saved a
bunch of money on your car insurance.

PETERSON: And I have done that in the past.

PRETZER: That was something else. Joel Brodsky and Drew Peterson are here for
about the next five minutes. Joel, what’s next?

BRODSKY: I’m not really going to do…I mean I’m talking, we’re talking about this
Dana because you’ve always been great with us but this is a personal matter with
drew and Christina and they’re going to, they’re consulting with Glenn Selig, the
media consultant. Their idea is that they are going to do one interview—it’s like the
paparazzi—you’ve got to let them take your picture and then they’ll go away. So I
think they’re going to do one major interview, get everything out in the open, and
then hopefully then they’ll be able to, the media storm will die down, they’ll be able
to live somewhat normally. For me, I’m just the lawyer so I’m going to try to go back
to practicing law and not commenting on Drew’s personal life. Now that it’s out that
in fact I was not …I think it’s pretty obvious now that they’re back together in such a
short period of time and confirming that there was an engagement. It’s pretty
obvious now that there wasn’t any publicity stunt, that the engagement was real
and that it was just a misunderstanding that got that out there. Now I can go about
my business which is practicing law and defending people who are accused of
crimes.

PRETZER: Drew, I’m going to ask you this and I understand if you say no. is it
possible for me to say hello to Christina for a second?
PETERSON: No, she’s busy with the kids right now so I’m not going to interrupt that.

PRETZER: Drew, I’m going to give the last minute to you, here, if you had a message
for the people who are out there regarding your engagement.

PETERSON: Don’t really have a message. It’s a personal private thing and just
because of who I am I think it turned it into a media circus. I wish that wouldn’t have
happened but it did. We’ll just deal with it. You’ve got to deal with things as how
they are rather than how you want them to be so that’s what we’re doing.