Crime & Safety

Frankfort Lawyer on Murder-For-Hire Rap Gets Some Attorney-Hire Money

The Frankfort lawyer charged with trying to hire a hitman to kill his wife got back a cool $2,500 so he can hire a lawyer.

A Will County judge is giving back the bond money he revoked from a Frankfort lawyer so he can hire an attorney to defend him against charges he tried to hire a hitman to kill his wife.

The Frankfort lawyer, 50-year-old Robert Gold-Smith, had been out on bond after allegedly attacking his wife outside a Will County courtroom following a November 2010 divorce hearing.

Gold-Smith allegedly beat his wife in a courthouse hallway in front of numerous witnesses. According to a psychiatrist's report, Gold-Smith said he "blacked out" during the attack.

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"I do not remember," he is quoted as saying in the report. "I was on a cloud watching everything; it seems so surreal. It seems as if I was in a dream. From the records it indicated that I hit her. I remember being tackled to the ground."

Gold-Smith got out of jail after putting the $2,500 bond on his credit card. But the money was taken away and he was carted back into custody after allegedly violating the terms of his bond by contacting his estranged wife, 45-year-old Victoria Smith.

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Gold-Smith caught counts of aggravated battery and aggravated domestic battery for the allegedly courthouse attack. He hired Joliet attorney Jeff Tomczak for that matter, but a public defender was appointed to represent him in the murder-for-hire case, which was filed in October.

Judge Daniel Rozak agreed during a Friday morning court hearing to allow the bond money go to paying for a private attorney. After the hearing, Tomczak he does not know whether Gold-Smith hopes to hire him.

The murder-for-hire case stems from detectives reportedly catching Gold-Smith asking a fellow jail inmate to kill his wife. According to court papers, Gold-Smith discussed paying for the murder of his wife with at least five inmates during his time in the county jail.

No less than three of these jailbirds met with detectives and offered to wear a wire while talking to Gold-Smith about murdering his wife. At least one of them did just that, according to police reports, and donned a recording device to catch Gold-Smith's statements.

The indictment against Gold-Smith identifies only one former fellow inmate as the target of his murder-for-hire overtures. That inmate, 49-year-old Brian McDaniel of Morris, was most recently jailed on a charge of domestic battery and a warrant from the Department of Corrections.

At his last court hearing, Gold-Smith's public defender said she was still waiting on prosecutors to turn over the audio recordings of her client trying to hire McDaniel to kill his wife. Prosecutors have yet to provide the recordings.


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