Prosecutors take second shot at Drew Peterson

Drew Peterson strode out of court a free man a couple months ago when a judge dropped the felony gun charge he faced -- but he's not in the clear yet.

Prosecutors on Friday filed an appeal to Judge Richard Schoenstedt's order to dismiss the weapons case.

"We indicated right from the start that we planned to appeal this decision," said Charles B. Pelkie, the spokesman for the Will County State's Attorney's Office. "We fully expect to win on appeal."

Peterson's attorney, Joel Brodsky, was not convinced.

"They would be smart to leave him alone," Brodsky said.

Peterson -- the sole suspect in his much-younger fourth wife's October 2007 disappearance and the subject of public scrutiny for the unsolved March 2004 homicide of his third wife -- was arrested in May on a charge of unlawful use of a weapon for owning a Colt AR-15 assault rifle with a barrel shorter than the state-mandated 16 inches.

In November, Schoenstedt ordered the state's attorney's office to surrender internal documents to Peterson's defense team so they could prepare to prove Peterson was the victim of a vindictive prosecution.

Assistant State's Attorney John Connor refused to comply with the order, and Schoenstedt dropped the charges.

The authorities have retained custody of the seized assault weapon, a rifle Peterson said he carried while a part of the Bolingbrook's SWAT team but never fired on the job.

"In the line of duty? No," Peterson said of discharging the assault weapon. "Just training."

After Schoenstedt kicked out the gun case in November, Pelkie did correctly predict the case would be appealed. Nearly a month before this, State's Attorney James Glasgow himself said he expected to conclude either the probe into the disappearance of Peterson's fourth wife, Stacy Peterson, or the slaying of his third wife, Kathleen Savio.

"I fully expect there to be a resolution in at least one of these investigations in the near future," Glasgow said in a written statement.

This has yet to happen, and again, Brodsky was skeptical.

"I still don't see any evidence of any wrongdoing by Drew," Brodsky said when asked about Glasgow's statement. "I still don't think there will be any charges."