Who Is Lauri Peterson's Son? New Details About Josh Waring's Attempted Murder Charge
He is charged with attempted murder.
getty The life of a Real Housewives of Orange County star may seem glamorous, but for Lauri Peterson, she is living with the harsh reality that her son is in jail.
Lauri's son, Josh Waring, was arrested and charged with attempted murder in 2016. He was accused of shooting a man by the name of Danny Lopez at a drug den house in Costa Mesa, California. Lauri, however, is insisting that her son Josh was set up.
According to Peterson, Josh and an acquaintance of his, Bryan Goldstein, visited the drug den house on June 19, 2016, arriving in two separate cars. Josh was driving a white BMW and Goldstein a blue Acura. Lauri believes that when Goldstein showed up, that's when shots were fired. Josh Waring's lawyer, Joel Garson, had also put in court documents that Goldstein can be seen in car surveillance footage from that night.
“Josh said he heard shots fired but he just got in his car [and] left. He knew that there was going to be trouble because of it", Lauri said.
"Police found [Waring] pretty much immediately, within minutes, I think," Garson added. "He barricaded himself into a hotel room … it wasn’t until the next morning that he came out. Now they sat all of the people that were living in this hotel room on a curb. They immediately pulled Bryan Goldstein and separated him from the other people in this hotel room.”
Meanwhile, Goldstein never testified in the case. Garson has alleged that the reason is because Goldstein is a police informant and authorities were trying to protect him.
According to Garson, police conducted interviews with those present that night using digital audio recording — or DAR — devices. However, he claims the interview that police did with Goldstein is incomplete.
“Another officer who was standing nearby — you could overhear the conversation on another officer’s DAR,” he said. “And you can hear the other officer saying to Goldstein, ‘If you want to stay out of this big jackpot, you’d better essentially distance yourself from this.’ And then they do the full interview and he says, ‘Yeah I was there but I didn’t shoot.’”
Page Six reports that during the DAR interview with Goldstein, an officer can be heard telling him: "If you want to keep yourself out of a big f—in’ jackpot … you’re not the one we’re looking for … you need to be straight up and honest with me.”
Garson had previously stated in court that Waring was immediately tested on the scene for gunshot residue, but both Goldstein and his blue Acura were not. It was a few days later — and after it had rained — that Goldstein's car was tested, according to Lauri.
Though he had been tested for gunshot residue, Waring found out six months later that authorities never ran the report. He then requested it be taken care of. That report ended up being done in Los Angeles instead of a local Orange County facility.
A report from the LA Coroner's Office stated that there was no gunshot residue on Josh Waring's pants or hands. That report was something Josh counted on to prove his alleged innocence in the case.
"My son from day one said, ‘Don’t worry, Mom. I will be exonerated because once they run the GSR, they will see that I did not fire a gun. We’ll wait for those GSR results. Well, we get those results back and there is nothing, but yet my son is still in jail. Meanwhile the shooter, the actual shooter, there’s no GSR. No nothing.”
Danny Lopez survived the shooting, and Lauri Peterson says that when officers initially interviewed Lopez, he told them Waring didn't shoot him and that the shots came from a blue car — something that Garson also made sure to point out in court.
Lauri adds that a man Josh had fought with earlier in the day at that same drug den is that one who accused Josh of being the shooter in an attempt to set him up.
By the time October 2016 came around, Lopez filed a civil suit again Waring, now claiming that Waring was the shooter.
"Our theory is that he thinks that there’s money to be had from Josh because of his mother and father being on the ‘Housewives of Orange County’ and he wasn’t sure after the police told him three or four times that [he] had the right identification", Garson said.
That civil case is still ongoing, with a settlement hearing scheduled for December and a trial set for January 14, 2019. Waring has remained in police custody at the Intake/Release Center in Santa Ana, California as he continues to await the criminal case against him as well.
He has also reported mistreatment by the Orange County Sheriff's Department. Waring filed a $2 million complaint against Orange County, alleging he was shot with pepper pellets and then received no medical attention. In addition, Waring also filed a claim against Orange County after it was discovered the jail had been recording phone calls between Warning and his lawyer, Garson.
Waring and Garson returned to court on Tuesday this week, and despite the emotional toll, Lauri Peterson was expected to be there as well in support of her son.
"I mean, it’s devastating. It’s so stressful, it’s impacted every single person negatively. I mean, we love Josh. And certainly, he’s had his issues with addiction … I’ve got a lot of other family members that count on me and so I can’t just halt my life. So I’ve got to continue on. But it is difficult. Josh has got a long road, a long, long road ahead of him. But I think he’s getting there. He’s been clean for a year and he’s my son again … I would like him to get out of Orange County and lose his friends and create a whole new identity somewhere else.”
Jill Zwarensteyn is a writer and Michigan native who covers trending news, pop culture, crime and celebrity topics.