'RHOC' Star Josh Waring Wins Court Victory As Mom Lauri Peterson Looks On
June 27 2018, Published 1:53 p.m. ET
Breaking Celebrity News can exclusively reveal Josh Waring, the troubled son of former Real Housewives of Orange County Star Lauri Peterson, won a battle in California court Tuesday after a judge agreed to allow his attorney access to a list of phone numbers that could be important in his quest to challenge attempted murder charges.
Peterson, who attended the hearing, remained quiet and took notes on a pad. The former reality star flashed a smile at her son, who turned his back periodically to look at the courtroom audience.
Waring's attorney, Joel Garson, claimed Orange County Sheriff's officials have repeatedly tried to stall the troubled former reality star from getting a fair trial — and even used illegally-obtained jail recordings of him and his father, Phillip Waring, to "take down" evidence that could help in his defense and point to the real shooter.
As Breaking Celebrity News previously reported, Waring has been in jail since June 20, 2016, and is accused of attempting to kill Daniel Lopez, 35, who was shot outside a sober living home in Costa Mesa. According to prosecutors, Waring got into a confrontation earlier that day with one of the residents. He then returned to the home and allegedly opened fire on the residents and shot Lopez, who survived his serious injuries.
In court documents, Garson alleged the true shooter was Waring's former friend, Brian Goldstein, who fired the shots from a blue car. Garson said Waring was in a white vehicle when he returned to the Costa Mesa home.
Witness Ronnie Dufault, however, told police he saw Waring fire the shots.
At the June 26 hearing, Garson claimed officials listened to a taped conversation in December 2016 between Waring and his father, Phillip, about racist and pro-Nazi posts that were allegedly on Goldstein and Dufault's Facebook pages. A month later when Phillip Waring tried to access those posts, they were already gone.
"We suspect that Sheriffs took it down or had them Goldstein and Dufault take them down," Garson told Breaking Celebrity News exclusively after Tuesday's hearing. "They are using information they got illegally to deny Josh a fair trial … and took down information that could hurt their case."
Phillip Waring testified on Tuesday that he saw numerous racist remarks and Nazi salutes on Goldstein and Dufault's Facebook pages.
"Josh wanted me to go on social media and capture the images ... of them doing Nazi salutes," the elder Waring testified. "He felt that would be important to his case ... that Ronnie and Brian had a connection, and they were both White Supremacists. There was a lot of material... They were making black jokes, jokes about people hanging people..."
However, he said he did not take the screenshots as his son had asked. When he went back to search the men's social media accounts in January 2017, Phillip Waring said the page was either taken down or those particular pictures were no longer on Goldstein or Dufault's social media profiles.
Prosecutor John Maxfield, however, said in court that Garson has yet to "connect the dots" between the alleged missing social media pages and the claims that Sheriff's officials were somehow involved in getting rid of those posts.
"This is pure speculation," Maxfield said at Tuesday's hearing.Waring has asked the court to dismiss the case on the grounds of "outrageous government conduct" by the Orange County Sheriff's Department. The 33-year old said his phone calls with his family were unlawfully monitored and recorded by officials when he w