ORANGE COUNTY, Fla.,None — WFTV found out the jail guard who allegedly helped Casey Anthony write an inmate pen pal in jail is now on suspension. Jail guard Silvia Hernandez is still being paid while the investigation plays out.
Hernandez was commended in one of her reviews for having a pleasant demeanor and keeping control of her dorm, which was Casey's dorm, at the female detention center, but she's now under investigation for being a little too pleasant to Casey and her two friends there.
DOCUMENT: Guard's Relief Of Duty VIDEO REPORT: Pen Pal Investigation 'SECRET' LETTERS: Judge Unseals Motion | Read Motion
Accused murderer Casey Anthony wrote 50 letters, 258 pages, to inmate drug dealer Robyn Adams at the Orange County jail. Those letters, still being kept secret from the public, have added to the damning evidence against Casey in the murder of her daughter Caylee Anthony.
Also, there's another problem. Both Casey and Robyn were in protective custody at the jail when the letters were exchanged, which means they were not to have any contact or communication with one another. Hernandez is now under suspension with pay while the jail investigates whether she passed the letters from Casey to Robyn, as Robyn told investigators.
Hernandez was assigned to Dorm L as soon as she was hired and worked there for about a year before being transferred. Hernandez worked for the state prison system in Lake County before going to work at the jail.
Hernandez has been disciplined for absences and tardiness and once for not reporting her use of force to break up a fight between two inmates, but apparently that's not all she failed to report. Even though Hernandez was praised for her writing skills, she apparently did not document anything about Casey's letters. It's unclear whether she read them.
Murder investigators say Casey also befriended inmate Maya Derkovic, a gang member who choked a girl to death while someone else held the girl down.
The jail investigation could take another two weeks. Casey remains in Dorm L, but Robyn is now in federal prison.
The defense has until Friday to decide whether to ask the judge to seal Casey's letters from the public. The judge has already said he's not inclined to seal them.
WFTV was told the letters hold relevant and damning information about Casey and the murder case against her.
NEW HEARING SCHEDULED IN CASEY ANTHONY CASE
A new hearing has been scheduled in the case against Casey Anthony. The hearing is set for Monday, April 5.
Casey Anthony's defense team is renewing its push to obtain records from the search organization that helped look for Caylee Anthony (read motion).
DOCUMENT: Motion To Obtain Records
Casey's lawyers maintain Texas EquuSearch volunteers searched the exact location where Caylee's remains were found, but came up empty. But EquuSearch says they searched near the area and said Caylee's remains were found was under water.
The civil case has a pre-trial hearing in May.
CASEY'S NEWEST LAWYER BRINGS NEW DYNAMIC TO DEFENSE
WFTV took a harder look at the newest addition to Casey's defense team, Orlando lawyer J. Cheney Mason, who says he can get Casey off, despite the evidence against her.
VIDEO REPORT: New Lawyer Brings New Dynamic
Channel 9 broke the story last week that Mason was on board. He has nearly 40 years of experience as a criminal defense lawyer and has won 50 first-degree murder cases.
Mason brings a dynamic, not seen yet, to Casey's defense team. He bombastic inside and outside of court and he's already made claims he'll get a not guilty verdict in Casey's murder case, but he's got hundreds of pieces of forensic evidence and testimony from more than 100 witnesses to fight against.
Mason says he's already got forensics experts volunteering to help Casey for free.
Prosecutors have the best labs and experts in the country concluding the duct tape found over Caylee's face, and on the Anthonys' gas can, could have come from the same roll, concluding one of Caylee's hairs in her mother's trunk came from her dead body, and that there were vapors from human decomposition detected in that same trunk.
J. Cheney Mason 031810 J. Cheney Mason But WFTV legal analyst Bill Sheaffer says what Mason brings to the defense table is 40 years of experience cross-examining witnesses hostile to the defense.
"Either impeaching them or casting doubt on their credibility, so that he can argue to the jury, ‘You should discount their testimony based on what I brought out during cross examination, therefore there's reasonable doubt,'" Sheaffer explained.
Recently, more damning evidence has come to light coming directly from Casey in 50 letters she wrote to another inmate at the Orange County jail. Investigators haven't divulged what's in the letters. WFTV asked Mason about it last week and obviously hit a nerve.
"We're gonna take a look at it and see whether it's privileged and I'm not gonna answer any more questions about it. Don't waste your time Kathi, I'm not gonna answer any more questions about it," Mason said.
The defense is considering asking the judge to seal Casey's letters. The judge has said he's not inclined to.
"All this evidence is like holes in the dam and, after a while, even Cheney Mason runs out of fingers," Sheaffer said.
The defense still has several days to decide whether to ask the judge to seal the letters.
Casey isn't the first high-profile woman Mason has represented. He helped former astronaut Lisa Nowak get a plea deal that kept her out of jail and a felony conviction off her record. She was sentenced to one year of probation.
Nowak was accused of trying to kidnap a romantic rival after driving to Orlando from Texas.
CASEY WAS ASKED TO PUT 'X' ON MAP
EquuSearch leaders say they always knew they were close to finding Caylee's remains, but discovery documents released Tuesday reveal just how close. It was as close as Casey Anthony almost pointing to a map.
EquuSearch leader Tim Miller told detectives it almost happened while he was visiting the Anthonys in their home. He said George Anthony nearly convinced Casey to do it until her mother, Cindy, intervened.
SEVERAL TRANSCRIPTS RELEASED 03/23/10 Tim Miller Transcript From 12/12/09 Melissa Earnest Transcript From 08/20/09 Richard Creque Transcript From 12/10/09 Tony Rovinski Transcript From 12/10/09 Lisa Hoffman Transcript From 12/12/09 Linda Tinelli Transcript From 12/14/09 Joseph Jordan #1 Transcript From 10/28/09 Joseph Jordan #2 Transcript From 11/05/09 Daniel Ibison Transcript From 12/10/09 Carol Conaway Transcript From 9/16/09 Jennifer Conaway Transcript From 9/16/09 Brett Reilly Transcript From 12/10/09 Brett Churchill Transcript From 8/21/09 Lori Cree Transcript From 8/20/09 Joy Wray Transcript From 11/23/09 Joy Wray Transcript From 12/10/09
SHERIFF'S REPORTS: Supplemental #1 | Supplemental #2 BILL SHEAFFER: Analysis Of Released Evidence VIDEO REPORT: Documents Go 'Behind The Scenes'
The 900 new pages of documents showed the other clues EquuSearch came across while searching for Caylee's remains, including a tip from the man working with the Anthonys' private investigator and volunteers telling detectives they tried to search that critical location but it was always under water.
From what Miller says, he suspected George and Cindy thought Casey knew more, too, judging by their bizarre actions. Miller told detectives that George Anthony's friend, a former law enforcement officer like George, told Miller that Casey held the answer to Caylee's whereabouts, but said Casey wouldn't talk. George's friend used a very unflattering word to describe Casey.
"And his words were, 'But the f****** b**** won't talk,'" Miller told investigators during an interview on December 12, 2009 (read transcript).
Miller told detectives, at one point after Casey had bonded out of jail, he felt he was close to making progress with her; he, George and Casey were seated at the table with a map and George pressed her.
"'Casey, where do they need to start searching? Would you make a spot on the map? Would you make an X?'" Miller told investigators George asked Casey.
"Cindy really got angry then," Miller told the investigators. "Casey got up and went back to her room and I, I looked at George and I think I just kind of threw my hands up and I said, ‘You know, I'm sorry. We really didn't come to cause any trouble,' or something to that effect."
Miller said attorney Jose Baez didn't want him talking to Casey, even though she was the last person to see Caylee alive, and that Casey never even said Caylee's name, acting as if she were going to a "cheerleading competition," always laughing and giggling.
The documents also show one of the Anthonys' private investigators claimed he was tipping off the EquuSearch volunteers behind the Anthonys' backs. In November 2008, a week before private eyes Jim Hoover and Dominic Casey made a videotape of their clumsy search in the woods where Caylee was eventually found, Hoover told EquuSearch they should search the same area.
But EquuSearch didn't, because parts of it were always under water when they were there.
WFTV legal analyst Bill Sheaffer says Hoover's alleged tip could have been part of a defense ruse to try to pin the blame on someone else.
"Hoover and [Dominic] Casey go out to the area that they wanted EquuSearch to search in order to make this video so that the defense can later argue, 'Well, our investigators went out there and searched and no body,'" Sheaffer said (watch full interview).
The defense claims someone else put the body there after Casey was locked up in October and after the private eyes' so-called search in November. Cindy also admitted to detectives, after Caylee was found, that she had sent someone there to search.
Also among the newly-released documents are transcripts with Joy Wray, a woman who has a troubled past and who claimed she searched the area where Caylee Anthony's remains were eventually found on December 11 but didn't find anything. Investigators' interviews with her are among the documents released Tuesday (read Wray transcript #1 | #2).
So far, more than 13,300 pages of evidence have been released in the case.
Previous Stories: March 30, 2010: New Hearing Scheduled In Casey Anthony Case March 26, 2010: Woman Who Claims Anthony Affair Attempts Suicide March 23, 2010: Casey's Newest Lawyer Brings New Dynamic To Defense March 23, 2010: Documents: Casey Was Asked To Put 'X' On Map For Body March 23, 2010: Witness List Obtained In Casey Civil Case March 19, 2010: Jail Launches Investigation Into Casey Anthony Letters March 19, 2010: Judge Grants Casey Anthony's Indigent Status March 19, 2010: Casey Celebrates Another Birthday In Jail March 19, 2010: Casey's Jailhouse Letters Could Hurt Defense March 18, 2010: "Game Changing" Attorney Introduced At Casey Hearing March 18, 2010: Judge To Decide If State Will Pay For Casey's Defense March 17, 2010: Anthony's Attorney Denies George Had Affair
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