Bench Press ...
The Peterson file: Convicted wife murderer Drew Peterson has fired one of his attorneys, Steve Greenberg.
Background: It was no secret Peterson’s lead attorney, Joel
and Greenberg fought like two cats from Kilkenny. It was reported Greenberg warned Brodsky against calling divorce attorney Harry Smith to the stand — a witness jurors later claim tipped the scales to guilty.
Quoth Brodsky: “Greenberg was let go because of his failure to accomplish most of the tasks he was brought on board to take care of. Also, for the record, Greenberg did not object to Smith being called as a witness. He never argued with me not to call Smith.”
Foreground: Brodsky, who invited Greenberg onto the defense team, is this/close to his client. former U.S. Sen. John Edwards, who was reported to have broken up with mistress Rielle Hunter, may be back in the picture again. Gads! police officers who died that day.
“I personally knew 13 of the 23 police officers who died and I have a special way to keep their names alive,” McCarthy told Sneed.“I am going to conduct a roll call of the men who died via text with about five guys who served with me in New York,” he said.
“I text each of the names of the 23 officers and they each text back ‘present,’ ” said McCarthy — who took an occasional moment to gather his emotions. One of those killed was his close pal, John Dallara, whose locker was next to McCarthy’s during his first few years on the force.
McCarthy took cover alongside New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and NYPD Chief Joe Esposito as the first tower collapsed — and spent the next six days sifting through rubble.
He also recovered the mangled license plate of his police car that had been crushed by falling debris — a memento he would place on the shelf in his Chicago office 10 years later when he accepted the top cop job here.
“One of my buddies texted me this morning and asked me ‘What time is roll call?’ and I said, ‘Well, I’ve got this little teacher strike thing, so roll call’s gonna be late today.’”
The tradition began a few months after 9/11 in the locker room of the New York Police Department’s football team (McCarthy was a linebacker), where he said each of the dead officers’ names in an honorary roll call.
“I said their names and everyone in the locker room yelled ‘present,’” McCarthy told Sneed. “In the years after that when I was still on the East Coast, a few of us we’d get together and have dinner and do a toast for each guy and kind of talk about them.”
Now 800 miles separates him from that close group of friends, so McCarthy conducts his roll call via text message.