Casey Anthony to be freed July 17

Casey Anthony was sentenced Thursday in a Florida court to four one-year terms for lying to police after being acquitted in her toddler daughter's death, but the 25-year-old is expected to be freed in 10 days due to time already served.

Earlier in the day, an official with the Orlando court who emerged after a meeting between Chief Judge Belvin Perry Jr. and others involved in the case said Anthony will be released July 13.
But later Thursday, authorities in Florida said Anthony will be freed July 17 as a result of a recalculation of the time she has served.
Perry told the court Anthony would get one year in jail and a fine of $1,000 US on each of the four misdemeanour counts.
The judge said she has 30 days to file any notice of appeal.
The hearing followed the woman's acquittal Tuesday on the three most serious charges against her — the first-degree murder of daughter Caylee Anthony, aggravated child abuse and manslaughter.
Wearing a silvery blue sweater and her long chestnut brown hair down, Anthony sat stone-faced, often looking down and fidgeting with her hair, until hearing her sentence.
She was found guilty by a jury of four misdemeanour counts, based on an interview with a detective on July 16, 2008. Anthony, in jail for nearly three years, could have served a maximum of one year in jail for each count, but received credit for time already served.
The sentencing hearing opened with defender Holly Hughes asking that Anthony only be sentenced on one count since the lies — including that she was working at Universal Studios after it was discovered Caylee was missing and that the child was with a nanny when investigators were trying to locate her — were told during a single interview with an officer, and therefore didn't have time to "pause and reflect between lies."
A lawyer for the state of Florida responded that each lie should be taken into account separately, even though they all occurred on the same day, because each was intended to mislead law enforcement and send them "on a wild goose chase."
Anthony refuses to speak
Perry took time to read the defence's case law backing its claim that it would contravene Anthony's constitutional rights to sentence her on four counts instead of one. However, he said, law enforcement expended a great deal of time and energy — from July through December 2008 — looking for Caylee as a result of the lies, so discounted the defence's argument.
He also asked Anthony's lawyer if she wished to say anything before her sentencing, to which he responded no.
Hundreds of people began lining up outside the courthouse hours before the 9 a.m. ET sentencing — the six-week trial typically attracted crowds of people jockeying to get into the courtroom — and dozens carried signs protesting her acquittal.
Anthony has been in the Orange County Jail since Caylee's body was found in July 2008.
On Wednesday, jail staff met to prepare for her possible release, and officials emphasized the need to ensure it would be done carefully.
"Due to the high-profile nature of this case and intense, emotional interest by the public, appropriate measures will be taken to release the individual into the community in such a manner so as to preserve the safety of the individual and the public," a release said.
One jail official told the media that most likely no one would know exactly where and when she would be released to protect her.
Criticized for lies
The Anthony case has transfixed America since Caylee went missing – a disappearance that took Casey Anthony more than a month to report. Following her acquittal Tuesday, hundreds outside the courtroom expressed outrage about the verdict, and legal analysts said Anthony would be found guilty in the court of public opinion for the foreseeable future.
Prosecutors had contended the single mother, who was living with her parents — painted during the trial as head of a highly dysfunctional family — suffocated Caylee with duct tape because she wanted to be free to party and spend time with her boyfriend.
They also nailed Anthony for the lies she told after Caylee went missing. She told her parents that she couldn't produce Caylee because the child was with a nanny named Zanny — a woman who never existed — and that she and her daughter were spending time with a rich boyfriend, who also never existed.
The defence argued Caylee accidentally drowned in the family swimming pool, and that Anthony panicked and she and her father hid the body. There were also allegations made by the defence that Anthony was suffering from the traumatic effects of being sexually abused by her father, George Anthony. All the allegations were intensely denied.
In the end, Anthony was acquitted largely because the cause of Caylee’s death wasn’t determined, and there was no clear-cut evidence that her mother committed the murder.
Whether Casey Anthony will return to the home of George Anthony and his wife Cindy wasn't clear following her sentencing hearing.
But a lawyer for the family told U.S. reporters Wednesday that Anthony's family received death threats ahead of the 25-year-old's possible release.
Anthony's attorney, Jose Baez, also said Wednesday that he feared for his client's safety given the high-profile nature of the case.

Casey Anthony Trial: Jury Could Start Deliberating This July 4 Weekend(Photo-Video)

The prosecution indirectly stated Wednesday afternoon in court that Casey Anthony deliberately killed her 2-year-old child, Caylee, during the cross-examination of an expert witness.
After Judge Belvin Perry admitted Dr. Sally Karioth, a certified traumatologist, as an expert in grief and trauma despite objections from the state, the defense sought to use several hypothetical situations in attempt to justify Casey’s actions during the month when Caylee reportedly first went missing.

Casey allegedly took her daughter out of the Anthony family home on June 16, 2008, when the toddler was last seen, and would tell her mother, Cindy Anthony, several lies about the whereabouts of Caylee during that month.
Caylee was not reported missing until July 15, 2008, after Cindy and George found their daughter’s car in a tow yard, which smelled like human decomposition, according to George.
Defense attorney Dorothy Clay Sims asked Karioth during her testimony how a 22-year-old “loving and great mother” would respond to losing her 2-year-old child.
The witness stated that young adults would often exhibit denial, risky behavior including drinking and partying. Sims then specifically outlined in a hypothetical situation a grieving mother who went shopping, rented movies, went out drinking, got a tattoo – which was exactly what Casey did – and was asked if those were normal behaviors.
Karioth called it reluctant grieving, saying that people would act like nothing happened in order to deal with their loss. The defense also added more details to the situation including families who displayed a history of denial and non-communication, which purportedly furthered those same actions.
During an intense and heated cross-examination, prosecutor Jeff Ashton wondered if there were any behaviors at all that were inconsistent with grieving, since the professor seemed to imply that every behavior from happy to sad was consistent with grief.
She responded, saying there were healthy responses versus pathological responses, but could not give Ashton any definite behavior that was inconsistent with grief.
Ashton also asked Karioth if she could look at a set of actions, not assuming there was a loss, and determine if it was grief or not. She could not unless she had certain facts of the case, which the prosecution pointed out she did not know, excluding generalities about a mother losing her daughter.
Karioth was also further questioned about denial, and confirmed that it could be a common coping mechanism for guilt as well.
Using the same tactics as the defense, Ashton illustrated a series of hypothetical’s, which were exactly the actions of Casey during the month of June. He outlined all of the lies that Casey had told her mother, including Caylee being with an imaginary babysitter or being at Universal Studios, going away to Tampa for work, and etc. when the entire time Casey was in Orlando, and asked the witness if those behaviors were consistent to grief.
Karioth agreed that she would not exactly call those behaviors consistent with grief, and commented that the hypothetical person needed help. She also called the actions “magical thinking.”
When Ashton went even further and added the hypothetical, “what if the mother deliberately killed the child,” objections were raised and sustained.
The prosecution then pointed out that when someone deliberately committed a horrible act, they could compartmentalize the event and continue on with life as if nothing happened, which they claim is what Casey did after she purportedly killed her daughter by suffocating her with duct tape.
In earlier testimony on Wednesday, the son of meter reader Roy Kronk, who found the remains of Caylee Anthony in December 2008, testified that his father told him on the phone around November 2008 that he knew where Caylee’s remains were.
The defense is trying to prove that Kronk deliberately moved Caylee’s remains to the wooded area near the Anthony family home in order to obtain a reward.
Kronk had told the court on Tuesday, however, that he never had a conversation of that nature with his son, Brandon Sparks, in November 2008. The defense also accused Kronk of telling his son he would be rich and famous, which the meter reader denied as well.
Sparks stated that he had been estranged from his father since he was 8 years old, but had developed a relationship with him again in 2008. During that time it was established that he spoke to his father three to four times a week.
The witness confirmed that Kronk told him around Thanksgiving of 2008 that he knew where Caylee’s remains were. But he had dismissed his father’s statement as far-fetched and didn’t believe him until it was revealed on December 11, 2008, that Kronk had actually discovered the body.
During cross-examination, prosecutor Linda Drane Burdick pointed out that Sparks did not remember the conversation he had with his father until Kronk’s ex-wife, Sparks’ mother, and his wife reminded him. Burdick continued to stress that the witness did not recall the conversation himself and also emphasized that he could not identify the specific call on his cellphone records.
He also agreed with Burdick that Kronk did not tell him in November 2008 that he had taken the skull from the scene, had it at home or his car, or done anything else to it. Kronk simply told him that he located the skull, contacted law enforcement, and that since he hadn’t seen him to look for him on television.
Baez concluded by asking Sparks if his father told him he was going to be rich and famous. He responded yes.
Roy Kronk also took the stand once again in the afternoon, going over his statements made to investigators and law enforcement. Baez tried to point out the inconsistencies in what he said previously, including omitting the fact that he had put his meter reader stick in the eye socket of Caylee’s skull and changing his testimony about the skull rolling or falling out of the trash bag.
The witness continued to state that he was overwhelmed that day when he found the skull and needed time to get his head straight.
Kronk acknowledged telling the first officer at the scene on December 11, 2008, about calling CrimeLine in August where he initially reported seeing the remains. He stated that the officer allegedly told him not to mention that fact.
But Deputy Edward Turso, the said officer, denied ever hearing from Kronk about the call to CrimeLine and also confirmed that he did not tell the meter reader not to mention anything.
Baez asked lead investigator Yuri Melich if Kronk mentioned anything about previously calling the authorities in August when he first met Kronk at the crime scene on Dec. 11, 2008. Melich responded no and confirmed that he first heard of the calls about a week after Kronk’s initial statement.
Judge Perry announced that the defense may rest their case Thursday and told the state to have witnesses available for Thursday just in case that happened. Closing statements could be made as early as Saturday and the jury could possibly begin deliberating on Sunday.

Casey Anthony trial enters 3rd week

The third week of the Casey Anthony murder trial gets underway Monday. On the second week, that ended Saturday, jurors had a front-row seat to the vivid yet imaginary world the Florida mother created in the weeks after 2-year-old daughter Caylee disappeared in 2008. The jury heard detailed stories from Anthony's mother and her brother, of her business trips to Tampa and visits to an old flame that later proved to be false. Jurors also heard recordings of Anthony's police interviews, jailhouse visits and a 911 call.

Anthony is charged with seven counts, including first-degree murder, aggravated child abuse and misleading police in the 2008 death of daughter Caylee. The last time the little girl was seen was June 16, 2008. The girl's grandmother, Cindy, reported her missing on July 15, 2008. Caylee's body was found five months later, in a wooded area less than a mile from the Anthony family home in eastern Orange County. Anthony, 25, has denied harming her daughter or having anything to do with the little girl's disappearance or death. Her lawyer has said that once all the facts were known, it will become clear his client is innocent. In a July 16, 2008, police interview, which the jury heard Thursday, Orange County Sheriff's Sgt. John Allen told Anthony the time had come to reveal the truth. "By burying this ... you are not going to get yourself to a better place, OK?" Allen said. "What you're going to do is you're going to cause everybody else around you to suffer. And at some point this is going to come out; it always does." Anthony heard the same sentiment expressed during in a jailhouse phone conversation with her mother, also on July 16, 2008. When Anthony blames her mother for her being in jail, Cindy Anthony fights back. "Well, whose fault is your sitting in the jail?" she asked her daughter. "Blame yourself for telling lies." The excusesTestimony earlier in the trial in Orlando revealed that Anthony lied to her parents and avoided them for 31 days in the summer of 2008 while Caylee was supposedly missing. During the second week of the trial, jurors learned more about what Anthony told her parents during that time and what she was actually doing. From the witness stand Tuesday, Anthony's mother described heated confrontations with her daughter on July 15, 2008, after she learned Anthony had been lying about her whereabouts for a month. The stories began with Anthony saying she was having a sleepover with a nanny named Zenaida "Zanny" Gonzalez. Then, Anthony said she was out of town on a work trip to Tampa, Florida. By the fourth week, Anthony's story was that she was out of town visiting an old boyfriend named Jeffrey Michael Hopkins. Cindy Anthony caught her daughter in her lies by discovering she was, in fact, in Orlando with a different boyfriend. By the time her mother called 911 to report Caylee missing, Anthony had a new story. "I know who has her. She's been my nanny for about a year-and-a-half, almost two years," Anthony told the operator in the July 15, 2008, call, which jurors heard Tuesday. When asked by the operator why she waited so long to report her daughter missing, Anthony replied, "I have been looking for her and have gone through other resources to try to find her, which was stupid." The characters In the following days, Gonzalez's alleged role would expand from an occasionally-mentioned nanny to a central character in Caylee's disappearance. When initially questioned by Orange County Detective Yuri Melich on July 16, 2008, about Gonzalez, Anthony provided a description of her without hesitation. That interview was played Wednesday. Anthony said she'd known Gonzalez for four years after they met working together at Universal Studios. She provided a physical description of Gonzalez, her address, even her mother's name. Other characters were also fleshed out. Hopkins, a former Universal Studios co-worker, according to Anthony, lived in Jacksonville and had a son named Zachary who played with Caylee. And then there was Juliette Lewis, another co-worker at Universal, who now lived in New York, Anthony said. She also had a daughter Caylee's age. Anthony claimed she called Lewis and Hopkins when she realized Caylee was missing. But prosecutors claim Anthony was not looking for her daughter in the month she was missing. Instead, she was staying with her boyfriend, spending time in Orlando with friends, attending parties, going shopping and hitting nightclubs, according to testimony from friends, her former boyfriend, and acquaintances, who also said that she did not mention her daughter being missing during that time. Anthony's frustration level with her parents, particularly her mother, was rising around the time Caylee disappeared, friend Amy Huizenga testified Tuesday. "I remember she told me her mom had told her she was an unfit mother. She was extremely upset about that," Huizenga said. But Anthony also was agitated at her mother because she had to cancel plans "fairly frequently" when no one was available to watch her daughter, Huizenga testified. In late June, Huizenga said, Anthony told her that she was keeping Caylee away from her parents, as they were having marital problems and were considering divorce, and "she wanted to keep Caylee out of the drama." 'Fessing upOn Thursday, Detective Melich described the day Anthony was finally forced to admit her lies, at least in part. On July 16, 2008, Melich worked with Universal Studios to scour the employee database. Anthony was in the database, but she hadn't been affiliated with Universal for years. Melich also found no record of Gonzalez or Lewis. A Jeffrey Hopkins was found, but never worked for the company at the same time as Anthony. Gonzalez's supposed apartment had also been found vacant. Anthony voluntarily met Melich at Universal Studios to discuss the matter. Melich testified Thursday that he watched Anthony try to enter the park without a badge, then attempted to lead him to her office before being forced to admit she didn't have one. "I can tell you just for certainty everything you've told me so far has been a lie," Melich said in a recorded interview played for the jury on Thursday. "I've gone to every address that you've told me. I've looked up every name, I've talked to every person that you wanted me to talk or try to. And found out all these names you're giving me are people that either never worked here or been fired a long time ago, OK?" Anthony conceded she didn't work at Universal and that the people she had described as her co-workers did not exist. Yet she continued to blame Gonzalez for the disappearance of her child. Cindy Anthony said her daughter had been telling her about Gonzalez along with numerous other people -- a boyfriend, a co-worker and a man named Eric Baker, whom she believed to be Caylee's father -- for years before Caylee went missing. At the time, she said, she never had a reason to believe those people were fictitious. "I just found out they were imaginary people," she testified. A Zenaida Gonzalez was later found, but she had no affiliation with Anthony aside from having filled out a guest card at the Orlando apartment complex where Anthony claimed the nanny lived. The apartment where Anthony said Gonzalez lived was found to be vacant, and there was no record of Gonzalez in the Universal Studios employee database. Anthony has denied killing her daughter. She faces the death penalty if convicted.

Casey Anthony trial opens in Orlando with defense claiming 2-year-old Caylee drowned

ORLANDO — With Geraldo Rivera and Nancy Grace in the courtroom, the Florida murder trial that has fueled a cottage industry of cable television coverage took more tabloid turns on Tuesday, the first day of testimony.

This is an Orlando trial with Pinellas County jurors who must decide if Casey Anthony killed her 2-year-old daughter in the summer of 2008. It's also a captivating drama with its own cult following — a case in which duct tape is the purported murder weapon and jurors may consider whether air samples taken from Anthony's car trunk contain the smell of death.

And like a John Grisham thriller with unending plot twists, defense attorney Jose Baez dropped a series of bombshells in his opening statement that only added to the swarming media interest.

Baez said Casey Anthony did not kill little Caylee — on purpose or otherwise. He said Caylee loved to swim and managed to get into the family swimming pool, where she drowned.

Baez suggested that Anthony's mother, Cindy, forgot to pull up a ladder by the pool, and that Caylee slipped into the water the next day when no one was looking.

The distraught family panicked and didn't call police, he said.

"Casey should have called 911. That's what she's guilty of, she's not guilty of murder. This is not a murder case," Baez said.

Baez didn't say in his opening statement how he believes Caylee's body was disposed of — or by whom.

It took months to find Caylee's body in the woods less than a half-mile from her home. The search for the missing girl catapulted the case onto cable television shows. Baez suggested this long wait was because Caylee's remains were hidden for months by a "morally bankrupt" meter reader who later staged a discovery of the body, hoping to get reward money.

Baez didn't make it clear how he thinks this man obtained the remains originally.

The defense lawyer's opening statements gave the public the first glimpse of how Casey Anthony explains her unusual behavior around the time her daughter vanished.

But Baez wasn't through.

In an effort to explain why Anthony did not reveal the accident to anyone for a full month, Baez said it was a symptom of her past sexual abuse — at the hands of her father, George Anthony.

Baez claimed George Anthony "inappropriately touched her starting at age 8" and that the abuse continued for several years.

As Baez unspooled his tale, George Anthony sat in the courtroom audience listening.

The Orlando Sentinel reported that during a recess, George and Cindy Anthony were seen in an elevator, and "were visibly enraged and shaken by the opening" statements.

Later in the afternoon, George Anthony took the stand as the first witness for the prosecution.

Asked by a prosecutor if he ever abused his daughter, he said "no sir," shaking his head and setting his jaw.

At the defense table, Casey Anthony shook her head and, at times, cried.

After court adjourned, George Anthony's attorney, Mark Lippman, released this statement: "George and Cindy Anthony are shocked and appalled that the defense would resort to lies about them in today's opening statement. Baez's idle speculation today certainly are not facts. The only result achieved by the defense in this statement was to further hurt this grieving family."

Baez also claimed that Casey's brother made advances toward her and was given a paternity test to see if he was Caylee's father. All those secrets eventually led to the cover-up of Caylee's drowning, Baez said.

"You will hear about a family that is dysfunctional," Baez said. "Ugly things. Secret things."

The defense's dramatic, free-wheeling opening contrasted with the methodical opening statement by Assistant State Attorney Linda Drane Burdick, who laid out her case with procedural precision.

For the first time publicly, Burdick explained how prosecutors believe Caylee died. Though an autopsy did not provide conclusive proof of a cause of death, Burdick said Caylee died after three pieces of duct tape were placed over her nose and mouth.

Burdick also said Casey Anthony led a double life. While living with her parents and her daughter, she dressed for work every day at Universal Studios — even though she was really unemployed.

She invented a babysitter who supposedly cared for the child. Her charade was so ingrained that when detectives interviewed her about her missing daughter, she took them into Universal to talk to co-workers. They got all the way into the administration building before she finally admitted lying about her work, Burdick said.

Burdick also said the trunk of Anthony's car contained clues of the girl's death. A sample of a tire cover in the trunk was evaluated by an expert, who found it had "the unmistakable odor of human decomposition," she said. Air samples were taken to preserve the odor.

The same tire cover also had high levels of chloroform, she said. And someone had used the family computer to make several Internet searches for "chloroform," "neck-breaking" and how to make weapons from household chemicals.

Burdick made her case not only with words but with pictures. She showed jurors the last known photo of Caylee, taken by her mother. It was a shot of the little girl grinning wide, a coloring book in front of her.

Then she showed the next known photograph of Caylee — a vivid image of the toddler's skeletal remains, which had been wrapped in a Winnie the Pooh blanket and several plastic bags.

The 12 jurors and five alternates were selected in Pinellas County because of the intense media coverage in Orlando. They will stay in an Orlando hotel for an estimated six to eight weeks while hearing the case.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.