Shanna Gardner (left) in a Duval County Jail mug shot, (right) Jose Baez and Casey Anthony listen during testimony in her murder trial at the Orange County Courthouse in Orlando, Fla., Tuesday, June 28, 2011. Casey Anthony, 25, is charged with killing her daughter Caylee in the summer of 2008. (AP Photo/Red Huber, Pool)
A woman indicted for first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder in the death of her ex-husband Jared Bridegan, a Microsoft executive and the father of her twins, has added a high-powered lawyer to her defense team, a lawyer who famously secured the 2011 murder acquittal of Casey Anthony in the death of her 2-year-old daughter Caylee Anthony.
Jose Baez has taken over the Shanna Gardner defense, replacing attorney Hank Coxe ahead of a scheduled Nov. 3 arraignment, Duval County court records reviewed by Law&Crime show.
Gardner, 36, was extradited and booked into jail in Florida on Oct. 20, months after she was indicted for allegedly plotting to murder Jared Bridegan, 33, with the help of her second husband, from whom she separated, Mario Enrique Fernandez Saldana, 35.
As Law&Crime reported before, Fernandez Saldana’s former tenant, Henry Tenon, 62, has already pleaded guilty to second-degree murder as the gunman in Bridegan’s death, a slaying that has Gardner facing the death penalty.
On Feb. 16, 2022, he had a routine weekly dinner with his twins, then 9, as well as the 2-year-old daughter he shared with his second wife Kirsten Bridegan, according to authorities. After their meal, he dropped the twins off at Gardner’s home before heading home with his younger daughter.
Bodycam footage shows the arrest of Shanna Gardner in the murder of her ex-husband, Microsoft executive Jared Bridegan, inset. (Law&Crime file)
Bridegan, police said, encountered a tire in the road in a dark area of Sanctuary Boulevard on the fateful night. Cops suspect that the tire was planted there in the hopes that Bridegan would get out of his SUV to remove the tire from the road.
“It was then that he was gunned down in cold blood,” Jacksonville Beach Police Chief Gene Paul Smith stated.
Because Bridegan’s 2-year-old was in the back seat of the SUV during the shooting, Gardner and Fernandez Saldana were also indicted on a child abuse count.
An affidavit alleged that gunman Tenon and Fernandez Saldana had “35 phone contacts” in February 2022, “30” in March 2022, and “5-9” in May and June 2022. Investigators claimed to discover in bank records that Fernandez Saldana gave Tenon three handwritten checks.
The twin children were with Gardner when she was arrested on Aug. 17, 2023, in West Richland, Washington, this after she she had already gone on record in the media claiming that she had nothing to do with her ex’s murder and that she had “no idea” who might have done it.
#BREAKING: Jared Bridegan’s ex-wife, Shanna Gardner-Fernandez, has been arrested and indicted on first-degree murder in his death. @SAO4Florida prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
Here she is last June telling @ActionNewsJax she had nothing to do with his murder. pic.twitter.com/D6rh3Qo2Cu
— Ben Ryan (@BenRyanANJax) August 17, 2023
Jose Baez’s areas of expertise are “complex and high-profile criminal and civil cases,” cases involving anyone from Casey Anthony, former New England Patriots tight end and convicted killer Aaron Hernandez, convicted rapist and movie producer Harvey Weinstein, and Dr. William Husel, a doctor acquitted in 2022 of murdering 14 patients with fentanyl.
Alberto Luperon contributed to this report.
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