Update: Drew Peterson Doesn't Testify as Defense Rests

CHESTER, IL — After calling only three witnesses — all inmates from state prisons — Drew Peterson’s attorney rested his case Friday morning. Peterson chose not to testify.

Closing arguments were scheduled for Tuesday morning with the jury to begin deliberations in the afternoon.

On Friday, Peterson’s attorney asked the three inmates what they thought of Peterson and another prisoner who befriended him at Menard Correctional Center — only to betray him by wearing a wire for the FBI.

That prisoner, 25-year-old Antonio “Beast” Smith, tried to record Peterson plotting the murder of Will County State’s Attorney James Glasgow. Glasgow led Peterson’s prosecution in 2012 and got him sentenced to 38 years in prison for drowning his third wife, Kathleen Savio.

Prosecutors played three days of Peterson’s prison conversations. Peterson, 62, spoke at length on the recordings about his hopes to someday smuggle drugs from Mexico for a cartel, how one time he got it on with three Russian hookers in a Florida swimming pool, and the movies he likes to watch. One thing he does not do on the recordings is explicitly order Glasgow’s murder.

Peterson was charged anyway and tried in Downstate Randolph County court, the home of Menard prison.

Peterson’s attorney, Lucas Liefer, wanted to call a fourth convict to testify but Judge Richard Brown excused him after he said he would not answer any questions.

“It’s in my interest to stay out of that,” 47-year-old Shelly “T-Real” McGree said Thursday afternoon.

McGee is serving a life sentence for murder.

Peterson’s murder-for-hire trial started Monday. Smith, a fat, slope-shouldered, bespectacled career snitch serving 30 years for slashing a woman’s throat during a robbery, was on the witness stand the first four days.

Smith testified how he first met Peterson when he was transferred to protective custody at Menard Correctional Center in August 2013. A former Gangster Disciple and current Satan’s Disciple, Smith said he feared for his life because he cooperated with Department of Corrections officials to work against other prisoners.

Smith said he had heard of Peterson — a former Bolingbrook cop and media sensation following his fourth wife, Stacy Peterson’s disappearance — and that another prisoner gave him a book about his case. He didn’t read it, he said, but did look at the pictures.

Smith said he and Peterson hung out during their brief recreation periods and at dinner, and would cook meals together in a cell. Smith also said he protected Peterson, who had been preyed on by other prisoners.

“I made sure that they knew if they had a problem with Drew, they had a problem with me,” he said.

After deciding to record Peterson for the authorities, Smith told two prosecutors and an investigator from the Will County State’s Attorney’s Office, “I’ll do anything you want to get your f---ing conviction.”

So far, the FBI has paid Smith $3,200 to replace property that was lost when he was shipped between prisons after he recorded Peterson. He had actually hoped to receive much more.

In illicit messages he sent to a former cellmate, 28-year-old Adrian Gabriel, Smith told how he was going to get them both released from prison and placed in a witness protection program. He also expected to be paid tens of thousands of dollars.

“We still have to play hardball and get what we want,” Smith wrote to Gabriel in one of the messages. “Not me, we. It’s you and me against the world.”

In another note, Smith wrote, “We demand freedom and some money immediately, and we stand on that. I told them bitches, if they don’t haul you out with me the deal is off.”

When Smith’s work was done, he was taken from Menard and eventually landed in a federal prison where he can come and go from his cell as he pleases, lift weights, play fantasy football and enjoy a generally “better environment, better food.”

The Federal Bureau of Prisons is keeping Smith’s location secret.

Smith said he was placed in the cushy federal pen for his protection.

“I wore a wire in a maximum security joint,” he said. “It’s the worst thing you can do.”

If he is found guilty of talking about having Glasgow murdered, Peterson faces up to 60 years in prison — 22 more than he got for actually killing his wife.