Izzy's Murder Defendant Still Wants Bretz Removed

JOLIET, IL — For the third and what he vows will be the final time, Patrick Gleason, the man accused of fatally shooting Izzy's bartender Daniel Rios execution-style, is asking a Will County judge to get rid of Charles Bretz & Associates as his private criminal defense counsel.

More than two years have passed since Joliet's Police Department determined Gleason walked into Izzy's during the early morning hours of March 9, 2018, with a mask over his head. Gleason then shot the bartender in the back of the head, killing Rios instantly, authorities say.

In November, Gleason wrote Will County officials asking them to get rid of Charles Bretz as his lawyer. Will County Circuit Judge Daniel Rippy reviewed Gleason's request and rejected it.

Last week, Gleason mailed a two-paged typed letter from his cell at the Will County Jail where he remains held on a $10 million bail.

Gleason wrote the motion himself, calling it, "Motion to relieve counsel of further representation."

Here are its highlights:

"The defendant requests a short continuance and wishes to obtain new counsel due to a conflict of interest with present counsel and requests this court to relieve the defendant's present counsel, Mr. Chuck Bretz, of further representation," Gleason wrote Will County's Courthouse last week.

Gleason's letter reminds the judge that he has remained incarcerated since March 9, 2018, which is also the date of the Joliet homicide inside the Theodore Street neighborhood tavern.

Gleason lived just a few blocks away on Dearborn Street in Crest Hill.

After killing Rios, Gleason then shot the bar owner's son in the abdomen during a struggle over the gun, but patrons in the bar tackled Gleason and pinned him to the floor until Joliet police officers arrived, according to court testimony. The bar owner's son survived the shooting and has since made a miraculous recovery.

"The defendant wishes to get this case over with and is not trying to delay the current proceedings but doesn't see an end near with current counsel," Gleason's March 13 letter states. "The defendant currently waiting (sic) to meet with two different attorneys and waiting to hear back from two more, to discuss their representation."

Gleason maintained that "counsel refuses to listen to the defendant or allow him to give any direction in his case."

Gleason informed Judge Rippy in his latest letter that, "The lack of lawyer/client relationship has also been admitted by Mr. Bretz on record in open court on November 8, 2019. This is my third and final motion to relieve Chuck Bretz as counsel. He has not come to see me at the jail since January 10, 2019. In May of 2019, I fired him in front of Mike Simon, his associate, over important discovery that disappeared after I found foul play.

"I lost all trust and faith in Mr. Chuck Bretz. If Judge Rippy won't allow me to get a new lawyer of my choice per the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, then I cannot get a fair trial in Will County."

Gleason closed his March 13 letter by reminding the judge that Gleason previously submitted motions to relieve his private defense counsel in August 2019 and November 2019.

Last month, Rippy ruled that Gleason is mentally fit to stand trial in the slaying.

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