Imperfect Justice_ Prosecuting Casey Anthony - Jeff Ashton [112]
I was speechless. Poor Mark only knew the tip of the iceberg. It was the cruelest thing I have ever seen an attorney do. Many times in defending a client a lawyer must do things that end up causing pain to innocent people. It happens, and I lay no blame on them. To tell this grieving woman, who for almost two years had held out hope that her daughter had nothing to do with the death of her little angel, that her own home was the place where it happened was bad enough. But to try and convince her that her husband was implicated and in jeopardy was beyond the pale. To me, there was no way to justify that kind of statement—no matter how “passionate” Baez may have been to defend his client. The only strategy I could see was that he was trying to get them to refuse to cooperate with us, fearing the prosecution of George.
“That is not the story that we have been given,” I told Mark. I also informed him that Jose’s claim that we were investigating George was a complete and utter lie. I believe my exact words were “That’s a fucking lie.”
I was outraged. Cindy and George hadn’t been the most helpful people throughout our investigation, but no one deserved to be treated like this. I was appalled that Baez would dare to tell these anguished parents a fat, blatant lie, while simultaneously hiding from the real, horrifying accusation that he was likely to make in open court. It shouldn’t have amazed me. From the moment I joined the case, I found myself saying over and over again, “I can’t believe he did that.” I kept trying to think the best of Jose and kept finding out how wrong I was.
I told Mark we weren’t investigating George, although sadly there was more bad news. But I had to get back to him about it. Linda and I discussed the best way to handle the therapists’ reports and we decided to invite Mark, Cindy, and George to our office. I gave Mark a call.
“We would like to speak with your clients,” I told him. “Have them come to our office with you. What Jose is telling Cindy is not true. I understand that the Anthonys may not trust us, but if they would like to read the transcripts we now have in our possession, they can see exactly what Casey is saying about what happened.” I didn’t give Mark any indication of what I knew, beyond that the transcripts were from mental health experts.
Mark started guessing what it might be. “Are they saying that George disposed of the body?” he asked.
“No, it is worse than that. It is worse than you can imagine,” I said.
Mark had a conversation with Cindy and George, telling them about Baez’s fabrication. Cindy was furious. Mark later told us that she called Baez and cursed him out for lying to her, she then told him she was coming to see us to read the psychiatrists’ transcripts for herself.
When Baez found out that Cindy was coming to our office to see what the doctors had said, he immediately shot off an e-mail to Judge Perry, essentially accusing us of violating Perry’s order.
Linda said that Judge Perry’s order indicated only that the transcripts would not be made public documents; it never restricted our ability to investigate the story, and there was no way we were going to let Jose’s lies go unchallenged. Baez would later attack us on this point, but the judge agreed with us.
What we decided was that if the depositions were sealed, we would just discuss our notes and our recollections with the Anthonys. At this point, we felt we had to tell them. They needed to know the truth about what was going on. We were prepared for the defense to accuse us of all manner of witness tampering, but we were willing to take the risk. We felt a moral obligation to George and Cindy, even though we didn’t know where their loyalties lay. We never deluded ourselves into thinking that anything we could do would bring Cindy out of her denial, but we figured that maybe if Cindy wasn’t willing to come out of denial for Caylee, she might be for