Video: Kook Who Falsely Claimed He Ran Over Woman Back To Support Jail Buddy

A delusional Naperville man who spent two and a half years locked up after lying about his involvement in a fatal hit-and-run was back in court to support a buddy from jail charged with trying to put a hit on his wife.

David McCarthy IV might even testify at the murder-for-hire trial of Frankfort lawyer Robert Gold-Smith, the embattled attorney said.

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 them 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.

Smith, 48, told of the attack when she testified Tuesday. She also said that even months before the beating, her husband was “completely out of control,” not only abusing alcohol, cocaine and prescription medication, but also stalking and intimidating her.

Gold-Smith, who is representing himself at trial, accused his wife of having an affair with a man named Sammy and asked her if he ever once threatened, cursed or called her “dirty names” before the day he allegedly beat her in the courthouse.
“Numerous times,” Smith told him.

Gold-Smith has also been charged with trying to buy off McDaniel so he won’t testify against him.

Before the trial began Tuesday morning, Gold-Smith said McCarthy, 31, visited him at the county jail the day before.

“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.

During a break in the trial, McCarthy spoke of his distrust of “the Will County government.”

“Knowing the practices of the Will County government, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was being railroaded,” McCarthy said of Gold-Smith.

McCarthy was jailed after he supposedly confessed to running down 20-year-old Melissa Lech and leaving her for dead on McDonough Street in August 2008.

More than three years after Lech was killed, he 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.

Lech’s mother, Maria Lech, said she was not surprised that McCarthy has resurfaced and is supporting Gold-Smith.

“Right now, nothing is going to shock me,” Maria Lech said. “Everything is f----d up in this country.”