Presumed Guilty: Casey Anthony: The Inside Story

by Golenbock, Peter; Baez, Jose

  I went to the jail and got Casey, who was dressed in jeans and the blue hoodie she was wearing when she was arrested. She carried her paperwork and things people had sent to her while she was in jail. She had her hair up in a little ponytail. It had grown while she was in jail. When she was arrested, she had a short bob.

  “Are you ready?” I said to her.

  “I’m as ready as I’m going to be,” she said.

  “I have this umbrella,” I said. “I’m going to open it up inside here. Mike [Walsh, from my office] will open the door, and we’ll walk out. We’ll be really close, and then we’ll get in the car and go. Let’s walk briskly and get out of here.”

  I opened the umbrella, which I had gotten when I was working for LexisNexis. You can see the logo if you watch the video on YouTube. I tilted it forward, and reporters mobbed us as we started walking out the door. Casey was under the umbrella, shielded from view, but the reporters just started attacking her.

  “Casey, where’s Caylee? Did you kill Caylee?”

  Casey leaned over and whispered to me, “I’m innocent, and I want to walk out of here with my head high.” She was asking me to fold up the umbrella so people could see her walk out with dignity, and I was just about to close up the umbrella when a local Fox reporter pushed himself under the umbrella and got right in my face.

  I don’t know what came over me, but it really pissed me off. If I hadn’t had one arm around Casey while holding the umbrella with my other hand, I would have slugged him. I literally wanted to clock him. It was such an invasion of privacy, an outrageous move on his part. I felt like we were being assaulted physically and that I had the right to respond with physical force. If I had to do it over again, I probably would have socked him one.

  But all I could do was shove the guy as hard as I could. I pushed him really hard. I started yelling, “Get away. Get away.” I was ready to fight. And then Mike from my office got under the umbrella to talk to me. I was about to shove him when he said, “No, Jose, it’s me.” Mike and I grabbed Casey from behind and rushed her inside the Durango and drove off.

  The motorcade to the Anthony home was carried live on local television. It wasn’t as dramatic as O. J. Simpson’s ride home in his white Ford Bronco, but it was close. People in the public were able to anticipate and follow our path, and along the route we saw signs. One said, “Burn in hell, bitch.” Another read, “You killed Caylee.” Others said, “I hope you die.” So much for innocent until proven guilty, I thought.

  We pulled into the garage, and George was the first one to greet us. Casey got out, and George went up and hugged her. He whispered something in her ear, and then they went inside. She wanted to do the first thing every freed inmate wants to do—take a shower in the comfort of her own bathroom. She went to the bathroom, and then we threw Padilla and his crew out of the home.

  I was so upset with the way the media were acting that I went outside the house and ripped them. I told them all off, told them I had never seen anything so unprofessional in my life. It was absurd. But this being the era of reality TV, the case of the State of Florida v. Casey Anthony was feeding the monster.

  I left because I had to go to court to make a motion for a new trial in the Nilton Diaz case. I had assigned another lawyer, Jonathan Kasen, to cover the calendar, and he was fully prepared to do so, but I had enough time to make the hearing, so I called him and told him I was on my way. He had seen what was happening on live TV and answered the phone laughing.

  “Ha, ha, ha,” Jonathan said, “Jose Baez, lawyer linebacker.”

  I went home after the hearing and told the Anthonys I was going to bring Lorena to meet them and Casey, and we did that. Cindy had asked Casey, “What do you want me to cook you your first night home,” and she said, “Salmon patties.” Of course, for us to get back in the house, we had to walk past ten media trucks and ten film crews.

  The Anthonys were not experienced people when it came to the criminal justice system. I brought with me a tape of 48 Hours about the Eisenbergs, a family that lost an infant daughter when someone came into the home and snatched her in the middle of the night. Police suspected the parents and bugged their home. The federal government later brought charges against the parents, claiming they had made incriminating statements in their home—they had installed a listening device in the home—despite the fact that they did not. I showed the film to the Anthonys because I wanted them to understand that there was a strong possibility that law enforcement would bug their home as well.

  I played the episode, and everyone was somber and down because they were going through the same emotions as the Eisenbergs.

  Under my contract with Padilla, I had agreed to let Tracy McLaughlin stay in the home to keep an eye on Casey, but I told the Anthonys, “She is not allowed to be left alone in a room with her.” I explained, “Whatever Casey says to Tracy, Tracy can be called to the stand to testify against her.” Everyone swore they understood. I don’t know if that was followed to the letter, but Tracy never was able to provide any incriminating evidence the prosecution could use.

  A couple days later a group called Texas EquuSearch arrived in Orlando for the express purpose of searching for Caylee. It was a group out of Texas run by a man by the name of Tim Miller, who started the organization to help search for missing people after his daughter had been kidnapped and killed. Miller was a well-respected individual who had been involved in the search for Natalie Holloway in Aruba.

  I was at the Anthony house the night Miller came over. Miller is a small man, about 150 pounds, and he was there with his assistant. We were talking, and afterward I said to him, “Listen, I appreciate your coming down, but I represent Casey, and all I ask is that you do not attempt to speak with my client.” He said he understood and would respect that.

  It was my first meeting with Miller, but it would not be my last.

  I DESPERATELY WANTED to be able to spend time with Casey—without anyone around eavesdropping. She had been placed under house arrest, and after meeting with the house-arrest person, it was arranged that the only places she could go were church, my office, and to check in with home confinement.

  I told her, “Write down that every day you will be coming to my office for the whole day, and then you’ll go back home,” and that’s exactly what she did. I needed to go over the discovery with her, and I needed her to get away from the distractions that continually popped up at the Anthony home. One time a security person from Padilla’s group tried to talk with her. Another day Casey got into a loud argument with George, and everyone in the house could hear them yelling.

  I just didn’t want her around people and making statements, because each one of those people could be called as a witness to testify against her. As for the family members—based on what I was seeing—they weren’t helping her at all. Her father and mother had both said very incriminating things about her early on in the process, and these comments were getting back to me. I did not want Casey speaking to anyone at home. I wanted Casey to understand that the only safe place to talk was with me and only in my office. As far as I was concerned, the less time she spent at home, the better.

  Every day we sat in the conference room of my law firm, and I would read her the discovery. I have always been a strong believer in clients knowing as much as they can about the case, and that’s what I wanted Casey to do. I wanted her to know the discovery backward and forward. We’d go over it together and strategize motions. And, of course, I was also building a bond between us so she would trust me, slowly but surely. I knew it was a process and I had the patience to wait for it to pay off.

  While she was out on bond, it also gave us the opportunity to raise some badly needed money for her defense. In exchange for giving photos of Caylee and her to a national news organization, Casey was paid $200,000, most of which was used to mount her defense. Of course, when the media found out, she was roundly criticized for it—unfairly if you ask me. Whenever a person faces a serious criminal charge and the pot
ential loss of freedom, that person sells whatever assets he or she possesses—their home, their car, expensive paintings, stocks and bonds—anything to mount a defense against the charges. And it’s a darn good thing Casey was able to do this. Without that money, we wouldn’t have been able to do a lot of the things we needed to do to fight her case. Without that money, we would not have been able to hire the experts that were needed to mount a viable defense against the barrage coming at us from the police, the prosecution, and the media.

  About a week after Casey got out of jail, I received a call from a member of the media, a local television reporter. (I can’t say who it was because he called me in confidence.) He said to me, “Hey, I’m hearing that Casey’s going to be arrested tonight.”

  “Why would the cops tell you that?” I asked.

  “Because it’s true,” he said. “The cops are telling everyone to go to the Anthony home, that something big is going to happen at the house.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said.

  “Nope.”

  I immediately called Sergeant John Allen and said to him, “Listen, I’ve been told that you have plans on arresting my client tonight.”

  “No, that’s not true,” he lied. “I don’t know where you got that.”

  “Are you certain you aren’t going to go and arrest my client tonight?” I asked.

  “Yes, I’m certain.”

  “Because the reason is, I would like the professional courtesy to surrender her if you are,” I said.

  The police almost always cooperate and let the client surrender because not only is it the custom, but it’s also a major safety issue. It prevents incidents from occurring, and nothing could be a more dangerous location than the Anthony home with all those cameras, spectators, and protesters roaming around it.

  When I hung up the phone, I said to myself, This guy is lying to me. They’re going to do it anyway.

  This was a case where everyone involved wanted as much publicity as possible, and in this case I believed the media over the cops every day of the week, and twice on Sunday.

  As soon as I got off the phone, I faxed a letter to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office. I wrote, “If you have any intention of arresting Casey Anthony, call me. I will be more than happy to surrender her and take her right to the jail so there will be no problems.”

  I strongly suspected this arrest was going to happen, so that night I waited in my office rather than go home. Around 8:15 P.M., Nancy Grace began recording live, using the Anthony home at 4937 Hopespring Drive as its backdrop. And sure enough, with the cameras rolling, eight unmarked police cars, sirens blazing, came riding onto the grass to arrest Casey for a couple of bad checks she had written during the thirty days when she was away from home in June.

  The police went inside the home, and just as they were doing that, I received a phone call from Cindy. I had a moment to talk to Casey, and I told her, “Listen, just invoke your right to counsel. I’ll find out what’s going on and I’ll come see you right away.”

  They arrested her, and as millions looked on, she was taken from her home with protesters screaming “baby killer” at her.

  For the cops it was all a big show.

  Why? I think it was to intimidate her and to show their power before the cameras. It served no purpose. They charged her with forging two checks, for which the bond was $1,000, and we posted it the next morning.

  The cops held a press conference right after they arrested her, as they always did. They explained she was being arrested for economic crimes. The police said that Casey borrowed her friend Amy Huizenga’s car while Amy was vacationing in Puerto Rico, found her checkbook in the glove compartment, and wrote several fraudulent checks valued at $644.

  We posted bond, got her out, and went through the circus again, with all the media there. This time, however, I hired some security. I had hired two huge guys who had helped me move my office from Orlando to Kissimmee, Marvin and Little John, who wasn’t so little.

  “You want to make a little extra money?” I asked them.

  “Sure,” they said, and I hired them to help me pick up Casey from jail after we had posted her bond.

  This exit went a lot smoother because no one wanted to mess with these huge guys.

  I asked Casey about the phony checks.

  “I couldn’t go home because Cindy was there,” she said. “I had no money. I was living either at my boyfriend’s house or at another friend’s house.”

  “What do you mean, you couldn’t go home because Cindy was there?” I asked. “Both your parents were there.”

  “Oh yeah,” Casey said. “That’s what I meant to say. My parents were there and I couldn’t come home without Caylee.”

  I wish I had pressed her then and there about her not wanting to go home because Cindy was there. I might have found out sooner what was really going on, but as they say, hindsight is always 20/20.

  AFTER WE DROPPED CASEY OFF at her parents’ house, I was royally pissed. I was steaming because I couldn’t believe the cops were playing these stupid, unprofessional games. I went outside with Cindy and this time, in front of the cameras, I blasted the cops. I had a copy of my fax and explained, “These cops were so unprofessional. Look, I sent them a notice, and they lied to me point-blank.” I really ripped into them.

  CASEY WAS OUT OF JAIL for about a week when I got a call from Allen, who said, “We’re going to arrest your client again.”

  “For what?” I asked.

  “For two more bad checks,” he said.

  “You knew she wrote four bad checks the last time you arrested her,” I said. “Why are you doing this again?”

  “That’s beyond my control,” he said. “They decided to charge her with the other two checks she had written.”

  All they wanted to do was ride her through the carousel again, but this time they allowed me to surrender her. Of course, the cameras were there again. And each time the police arrested her, they tried to talk to her without her lawyer—which was the true purpose of this futile exercise. They read her her rights and asked her, “Would you like to speak?” and again Casey did as instructed.

  “No, I want my lawyer present,” she said.

  We posted bond for a third time and brought her home again. That was it for the bad checks and the harassment.

  RIGHT AROUND THIS TIME, Cindy and Casey were in my office when Cindy received a phone call from one of the cops.

  “We need to speak to you right away,” he said.

  “I’m in Jose Baez’s office,” she said. “If you want, you can come here.”

  “We’ll go anywhere but there,” he said.

  “No,” she said, “If you want to meet with me, you can meet me here.”

  Two of them came to the office, along with a member of the FBI, and asked if they could speak with Cindy. I agreed. I let them use one of the other rooms, and that’s when they told Cindy that an expert who worked for the University of Tennessee Anthropological Research Facility (also known as the “Body Farm”) in Knoxville, Tennessee, had tested the carpet taken from Casey’s Pontiac and determined that the chemicals released from the carpet were consistent with a “human decompositional event.”

  Said one of the policemen, “They came back saying it was human decomposition, and we believe Caylee is dead.”

  Cindy fell to her knees and wept. She was devastated, absolutely and completely devastated. She was so distraught she couldn’t get up. I helped bring her to the couch and sat her there. Everyone in the room—the police, the FBI agent, myself, all of my employees—just felt horrible.

  Casey had been taken back to the house, so she hadn’t heard the news. Cindy lay on the couch in a fetal position, crying her eyes out, when she looked up at the police and asked, “Are you 100 percent certain that Caylee is dead?”

  Nick Savage, an FBI agent, said to her, “Nothing is 100 percent certain.” And I could see the blood rush to Cindy’s face. She popped up almost instantly and said, “
You mean to tell me you have the nerve to come here and stab my heart and take away my hope and tell me Caylee’s dead when you don’t know for sure?”

  The cops started to stutter. They hadn’t expected that response from Cindy. She turned to them and began to yell, “How dare you? Who the hell do you think you are to come in here and say something like that when you don’t know for sure?”

  It was as if she had risen from the dead and overpowered all of them. And it was at that moment that I felt a tremendous amount of respect for Cindy Anthony.

  It turned out the reason the police were in such a hurry to tell her was because they had already leaked the results of the tests to the media. They didn’t want Cindy to find out from the media.

  Again, I couldn’t get over their lack of professionalism. Their desire to try this case in the media overcame—inundated—their ability to conduct a proper investigation. And this was a perfect example of it. Here they had results from a highly novel type of test, in which they heated the carpet samples and studied the gasses that were released. It turned out the results were very preliminary (in the end they would reveal no such thing), but they released them because of their need to feed the media.

  The media were a bigger priority than the investigation. Before knowing with certainty, the police were telling a grandmother her missing granddaughter was dead. In the end, it turned out to be true, but it doesn’t take away from the lack of professionalism and the ridiculous way the police conducted themselves.

  Put the pieces together: the ruse in the jail, the revolving door of arresting her, the leaks to the media, and the manner they were leaking information. These guys might just as well have been the Keystone Kops, but at the same time, the media were painting them as Super Cops. This bears repeating: As far as the police were concerned, the Casey Anthony case was a reality show that the media were scripting, and the reason the cops got a free pass to do whatever they wanted to do was that the cops were trying to make their reality show come true.