Crazy Confessor Kicked Out Of Courthouse Law Library During Jail Buddy's Wife-Hit Trial

JOLIET, IL — A delusional Naperville man supporting a buddy from the county jail during his murder-for-hire trial was kicked out of the courthouse law library for allegedly bothering a worker.

Five county deputies surrounded David McCarthy IV in a courthouse hallway Tuesday morning and one hand-delivered him a letter from Chief Judge Richard Schoenstedt. The letter forbade McCarthy, 31, from entering the law library without written permission.

“You’re not to go into the law library unless you get permission from the chief judge a week prior,” the deputy told McCarthy, who had exclaimed, “I’m a spectator in open court!”

McCarthy was actually sitting on a bench in the hallway at the time, but has been observing the murder-for-hire trial of Frankfort attorney Robert Gold-Smith. Gold-Smith, 53, allegedly discussed paying for the murder of his wife, Victoria Smith, with at least five inmates during his time in jail. No less than three of these inmates met with detectives and offered to wear a wire while talking to Gold-Smith about killing his wife.

Only one of the five — 52-year-old Brian McDaniel — was identified in the indictment against Gold-Smith. McDaniel allegedly recorded Gold-Smith as he talked about his murderous plans.

Gold-Smith was in jail in the first place for viciously beating his wife in a courthouse hallway following a hearing for a protective order in November 2010, police said.

McDaniel testified during Gold-Smith’s trial Tuesday. Gold-Smith’s sister, Patricia Rocco, also took the witness stand. Rocco said the voice on the recordings played for her is not that of her brother.

On the first day of his trial, Gold-Smith said he might call McCarthy as a witness.

“He went through the same thing,” Gold-Smith told Judge Daniel Rozak, adding that McCarthy is “willing to testify.”

By going through the “same thing,” Gold-Smith explained that he and McCarthy were both subjected to physical and sexual abuse at the hands of jail guards, and that evidence in their cases was destroyed.

In 2012, McCarthy was jailed after he supposedly confessed to running down 20-year-old Melissa Lech and leaving the Joliet woman for dead on McDonough Street in August 2008.

More than three years after Lech was killed, McCarthy showed up at the home of her sister, Michelle Lech, police said. McCarthy allegedly claimed responsibility for the deadly hit-and-run accident and took off, but not before Michelle Lech got his license plate number.

The cops tracked McCarthy down and took him into custody, but it turned out he made the whole story up, according to prosecutors. The case against McCarthy was dismissed and he was released from jail in June 2014.

A psychologist had determined that McCarthy “suffered from a mental disease or defect, and that this disease essentially caused him to make a ‘false confession’ regarding his involvement in the case,” according to court papers.

“Over the years, he has admitted to a number of things, which could not possibly be true, and based upon fantasy,” a psychologist wrote in a report on McCarthy.

“As he has done in other situations, he has ruminated and obsessed and takes information that he may know about a situation, makes inferences about how it may apply to him, and this develops into a delusional belief,” the report said.

The driver who ran down and killed Melissa Lech has never been identified.

On Tuesday, McCarthy declined to discuss why he went to Michelle Lech’s home or why he claimed to have killed her sister.

Judge Schoenstedt explained that he put restrictions on McCarthy out of concern for the “safety and security” of courthouse employees.

“He was over-communicating with one of my employees,” the judge said, calling McCarthy’s behavior “inappropriate.”

A county deputy was specially assigned to keep an eye on McCarthy while he remained at the courthouse.