Imperfect Justice_ Prosecuting Casey Anthony - Jeff Ashton [151]
Prior to submitting the files to Bradley, Stenger had done a similar search of the file using a different software program, but felt some of the results may not have been accurate. That report reflected all of the activity in that file. Both reports were provided to the defense. As it turns out, the earlier report that Stenger had produced indicated that the particular site was only visited once and attributed the eighty-four hits to a MySpace page. The defense called Stenger and exposed the discrepancy in the two reports. We still are not completely sure which one was correct but the real effect on the case was that the error took the jury’s attention away from the most important issue: that the site was visited period. It certainly made us all look bad. Once the discrepancy was pointed out to us, we never again argued the search number.
Stenger did an analysis of the deleted file shortly after the trial ended, using a different program, and found the same searches on the same dates, but instead of eighty-four visits to the one site, he found only one. Again, the error unfortunately detracted from the important information, which was that someone had searched for “how to make chloroform” in the first place.
During his testimony, Lee Anthony showed his allegiance to Casey much as his mother had. Perhaps the death penalty on the table was a motivating factor in their loyalty. In deposition, Lee had talked about the period of time when Casey was pregnant. He had been living at home, and said she looked like she was getting fat, so he went to talk to his mother. Cindy didn’t want to talk about it. Lee had just shrugged it off, figuring it was none of his business. He said his parents were soon “over the top” about it, and had even made a nursery and thrown a baby shower.
Now on the stand, he was throwing his parents under the bus, crying and hamming it up. He blamed his mother and father for “hiding” the pregnancy and for being ashamed of it. He acted beside himself that his parents “wouldn’t let him” be involved in any aspect of the pregnancy, and had even kept him away from the birth of his niece. Lee was totally playing into Baez’s claim that this family had secrets and everybody was a victim.
Lee was never asked at trial about his sister’s allegations of sexual misconduct, but I was told that he had denied the claims to Anthony family attorney Mark Lippman, telling the lawyer “it never happened.”
THROUGH THE TESTIMONY OF ALL of these witnesses, Baez had been almost entirely on his own. Cheney Mason had joined the defense team with great hype and celebration, and throughout the six and a half weeks of trial, we had barely heard from him. He had a good reputation as an elder statesman, but made most of his money on divorce cases or high-publicity trials. He tried to project himself as larger than life. In the Anthony case, he had cross-examined only a couple of witnesses, among them Dr. G, but had done little else. Part of his role may have been funding. We had heard that Cheney was paying for hotel rooms for members of the defense team when we were picking the jury in Pinellas County.
At one point in the middle of trial Cheney had handed Frank a piece of paper with trivia information about the courtroom: how many ceiling tiles there were, how many recessed lights, and other minutiae. I think he was basically telegraphing his boredom, that he was not involved in the case and that this was Baez’s case. Because he was not engaged, he had a lot of time to fill his mind with other factual nuggets. That became clear after one of our many sidebars with Judge Perry over the admission of evidence. Cheney shrugged his shoulders and said in his southern drawl, “I keep trying to teach the boy the rules of evidence.” When we asked him about anything pertaining