Casey Anthony can be questioned about audio tapes, judge says - OS

Casey Anthony can be questioned about audio tapes, judge says

2:32 p.m. EST, November 6, 2012
Jeff Weiner, Orlando Sentinel

Casey Anthony will have to answer questions about what happened to audio recordings she made after her murder acquittal last year, a judge in her defamation suit ruled Tuesday.

The judge previously conditionally granted Gonzalez's request for the audio tapes, but Anthony's lawyers responded that they don't exist.

At a hearing Tuesday, Anthony's attorney Charles Greene for the first time gave a detailed account of what came of the audio, as well as additional video diaries Anthony made.

Greene said Anthony "was spending a lot of time in isolation" while living in hiding late last year. Her lawyers told her it might be "therapeutic" to make a record of her thoughts, Greene said.

He said the advice was "consistent with the advice of psychotherapists."

The video diaries were posted on "what we thought was a secure website where communications with Ms. Anthony and her counsel were maintained," Greene said.

But when a diary leaked online in January, "We destroyed everything on the website," he said. The audio tapes, he said, were "practice" for the video diaries, and "were never preserved."

Gonzalez attorney Keith Mitnik didn't accept that explanation.

"How believable is this, coming from her?" he said of Anthony. He said the defendant, who was convicted of lying to authorities, has shifted her account of what happened to the audio repeatedly.

"She has decided she doesn't want you to look at them," Mitnik told Circuit Judge Lisa Munyon.

Munyon granted the request to depose Anthony, but said that "all the same safeguards" from her prior deposition in the suit — she answered questions remotely via video — will remain in place.

The case is set for trial in January, and court filings have been piling up from both sides. Another hearing in the case is set for Wednesday afternoon.

Gonzalez says her life was upended after Anthony said a similarly named nanny had kidnapped her daughter in 2008. The nanny didn't exist, according to authorities, and the girl was dead.

Anthony was acquitted on all major charges in her daughter's death after an ultra-high-profile trial last year. She is currently living in hiding due to public outrage over the verdict.

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-11-06/news/os-casey-anthony-hearing-audio-tapes-20121106_1_zenaida-gonzalez-casey-anthony-lawyers-defamation-lawsuit