New Hearing Scheduled In Casey Anthony Case

ORLANDO, Fla. — 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 | Response To Motion

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.

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.

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.

JAIL LAUNCHES INVESTIGATION INTO CASEY ANTHONY LETTERS

The Orange County jail Friday launched its own investigation into at least one corrections officer accused of helping Casey Anthony exchange letters with her jail pen pal. But Casey probably won't get in trouble for that pen pal, even though the rules of her high-risk solitary confinement were broken.

'SECRET' LETTERS: Judge Unseals Motion | Read Motion VIDEO REPORT: Letters Lead To Investigation

The jail's policy places the blame on jail guards for this kind of thing if they were involved, so Casey might not face any repercussions.

Jail guard Silva Hernandez might, though. This happened about a year ago and Hernandez had already been transferred from Casey's building before this came to light.

"Orange County Corrections has started an internal investigation into issues uncovered in an FDLE investigation mentioned in court documents yesterday. The court document indicates that letters or notes were passed between Casey Anthony and at least one other inmate," Allen Moore wrote in a release from Orange County Correction emailed Friday afternoon.

The director of the Orange County jail was told late Thursday to start an internal investigation into allegations that surfaced during the Casey Anthony murder investigation that a jail guard helped Casey and another inmate exchange letters, which is not allowed.

"I think it's very serious. That's not what they're there for. They're there to protect everyone. If they're in protective custody, that's what it means," Orange County Public Safety Director Mike McCoy said.

Casey is in protective custody in the female detention center, Dorm L, which is where jail guard Silva Hernandez worked for a year, starting January 2008 when she was hired. Casey was there at least since October 2008.

Two Inmates In Casey Controversy 031910 A Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation found that Casey befriended two inmates in dorm L, Maya Derkovic and Robyn Adams. Derkovic later admitted to choking a 15-year-old girl to death while someone else held her down. Adams was convicted of federal drug charges, along with her husband, a former Altamonte Springs police officer.

Investigators say they have 50 notes and letters Casey passed to Adams, apparently with the guard's help. They say Adams gave those letters to a mysterious third party.

Orange County Deputy Anthony Whitmore was also interviewed by FDLE for as of yet unknown reasons. Whitmore was hailed as a hero almost six years ago for helping rescue a badly injured officer, but has also been investigated twice by his department, once for allegedly stealing a magazine.

Hernandez works at the jail's booking center and will stay there during the investigation. She and any others who might have been involved could face discipline, but probably not criminal charges.

Previous Stories: 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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