Presumed Guilty: Casey Anthony: The Inside Story (57 page)

The exclamation point of his testimony was that George had told Birch that Casey’s car had been at the Amscot parking lot for three days. He had known that, Birch said, because George Anthony had told him so.

Right after Birch, the prosecution called George to the stand again. What I found fascinating was that George, Cindy, and Lee were granted special permission during the trial to sit in the courtroom. Ordinarily, if you were testifying during the trial, you couldn’t sit in court, but the rule of sequestration didn’t apply to them, so they were able to listen to all the testimony.

George had just watched Birch testify that George had told him the car was at the Amscot lot for three days.

But when I asked George whether he had told Birch that, George said, “No, I didn’t tell him that.” And not only that, said George, but he had called Amscot right after he got to work that night.

So here we had an independent witness versus George, clearly showing that not only was George lying, but that he had access to that car for three days. You have to ask yourself: Why didn’t George come and pick it up when Casey told him, and he said he’d come and get it? Did George leave it to get towed intentionally to start the ball rolling in an effort to pin Caylee’s death on Casey? You have to wonder.

Casey, meanwhile, had told a number of her friends that she had told George and told him to pick up the car, so there was evidence that she wasn’t making up the story.

As they say, the third time is a charm, and this is where the momentum really shifted to the defense as it related to George. He came across as unbelievable on so many points. For example, he was unable to tell the jury how long it takes a letter to get to his house from a mile and a half away. He went and picked up Casey’s car knowing it “smelled of death,” after not seeing Casey for three weeks, and he never even bothered to call Casey to inquire whether she or Caylee was okay?

The inconsistencies would also occur with Cindy.

At times George and Cindy would contradict each other. It was the weirdest thing.

While trying to explain why he didn’t think Casey was pregnant in 2005, one time George said the reason Casey gained weight was because she would do athletics all the time, and when she’d run and exercise, she’d grow.

“She grew a potbelly from exercise?” I asked him.

And then I’d question Cindy, who was sitting right there listening to George’s testimony, and Cindy would say, “No, she gained weight like that when she was sedentary.” Meaning, Casey didn’t do
any
exercise.

I couldn’t believe how often they’d get up on the stand and contradict one another
while
they were listening to each other’s testimony.

And people wonder how Casey was found not guilty?

I would later tell the jury, “They are
all
liars.”

Cindy came on next to testify about her 9-1-1 call to the police. The rush I had gotten from being so successful with George was deflated because Cindy came across as a phenomenal witness for the prosecution. She was very sympathetic. She testified well, answering Linda Drane Burdick’s questions in a calm and sympathetic way.

I never in a million years thought the hard-bitten, fast-talking Cindy could come off as sympathetic. Just knowing the way Cindy was, very powerful and aggressive, I thought that attitude was going to come through, but with Burdick on her side, she came off very well.

To watch her during that 9-1-1 call, you watched a woman being tortured. And when the jury looked at the photos of Caylee’s playhouse, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

I knew the one thing I couldn’t do was get up there and attack a grieving grandmother, so my cross was very subdued and not very effective, because I knew that if I had gone after her, I would have done more harm than good.

What surprised me was that Cindy and Burdick, up until then, had been archenemies. Cindy had always defended Casey, and the two of them would battle. I used to joke with Burdick, calling it the Cindy Two-Step, meaning the two of them would go toe-to-toe with one another and dance. Cindy would sometimes get so aggressive with Burdick, that Burdick had to ask Judge Perry to step in and shut Cindy up. I used to laugh at Burdick all the time whenever she and Cindy would battle because Cindy was no pushover. I gather when Casey accused George of sexual abuse, Cindy went over to the prosecution’s side.

Cindy had been extremely aggressive with Burdick, and I wanted the jury to see that, so right then and there, I started to think to myself,
I have to find a way to get the old Cindy back.

Later on, we would, and it would be explosive.

A
FTER
C
INDY TESTIFIED
during court on June 13, there was a break in the case, and Judge Perry spoke to the jury. He said that depending on the length of the defense’s presentation, deliberations should begin “hopefully the 25
^th
or 27
^th
, but that is subject to change.”

Cheney objected and called for a sidebar.

“Listen,” Cheney said, “We don’t have any obligation to put on any evidence at all. And you just told the jurors you expect us to be putting on evidence, and we may or we may not.”

“But you told me you were going to put on evidence,” said Judge Perry.

Yes, we did tell him that, but nevertheless we felt that his discussion was signaling to the jury that somehow we had a burden, when we didn’t.

Unfortunately, Judge Perry took it personally.

“Y’all lied to me,” he said.

“No,” Cheney said.

“Yes, the hell you did,” said a very angry Judge Perry. “If you don’t put on any evidence, then I will do that.”

“Well, we are,” Cheney said, “so don’t worry about it.”

“I will take it that I cannot trust one thing your side says anymore,” said Judge Perry.

After that exchange we repaired to a room where our team sat down to discuss whether to try to recuse Judge Perry.

“This is getting out of hand,” I said. “He’s admitted that he can’t trust a word we say, so how the hell can he give Casey a fair trial?”

We went back to sidebar with Judge Perry and told him what we were thinking, and he said, “Go ahead and file your motion, and I’ll file my response.”

Which in my estimation meant,
Do it and I’ll retaliate.

The proper response should have been, “I’m sorry you feel that way. It’s not that way at all. But you’re more than entitled to file your motion.”

But the way he replied to me I took to be a threat.

We prepared the motion, and we went back and had another meeting, and every member of the team pretty much agreed that we shouldn’t do it. We felt it was the right thing for the client, but the wrong thing for me.

“I fear he’s going to retaliate against you, Jose,” said Dorothy Clay Sims, and each member of the team agreed.

“I’ll withdraw my vote because I’m biased and only thinking of myself,” I said.

The vote remained the same.

I went to Casey and explained it to her, and told her the pros and cons; she too didn’t want me to file it.

“Don’t file it,” she advised.

“I don’t want anything to happen to you,” said Casey.

And so we didn’t.

CHAPTER 27

THE STATE’S CASE TURNS TO HUMAN DECOMPOSITION

F
OR A DAY AND A HALF, all the prosecution did was play videos of the jail visitations of George, Cindy, and Lee. That was a difficult time for everyone, because they were lengthy and repetitive. But the state did it because it was trying to prove several things. It wanted to show what a smart-ass Casey was to her parents, it was showing her lies about Zanaida, and it was showing her interaction with George, during which she told him what a great father he was.

What I realized and no one else did, was that this was right around the time Casey was trying to convince her parents to get her out on bail, and so she was trying an angle with Cindy in the context of, “Get me out so I can help you find Caylee,” and her angle with George was, “You’re the greatest father since sliced bread. Hey, I’m not going to roll over on you and tell everyone about the sexual abuse or about carrying away Caylee’s body, so please bond me out.”

Then there was the video that caused the public to think that the story about Caylee drowning in the pool was an invention. It occurred on August 14, when George and Cindy went to visit her. On the tape you can hear Cindy say, “The media is saying that Caylee drowned in the pool,” and Casey says, “Oh well. Oh well,” sounding like she’s blowing her off.

We were going to counter that by putting either George or Cindy on the stand, and the testimony would have revealed that just before that moment, George and Cindy were walking to the jail when a reporter said to them, “So what do you guys think of this new theory that Caylee made have died
by accident
?”

It struck a chord with George, who turned around and blew up at the reporter.

“Shut up. Shut up,” he started yelling.

Then they go into the jail, and you can hear Cindy saying to Casey, “George just blew up at the media.”

“Oh really?” said Casey.

“They’re saying that Caylee
drowned in the pool
,” said Cindy.

And that’s when Casey said, “Oh well. Oh well.”

But here’s the point. The media said, she died “by accident.” But Cindy was the one who said “she drowned in the pool.”

The inference had to be that at that point Cindy knew.

And I was going to ask her how she knew. But we never did that, because we didn’t feel it was necessary.

The one thing everyone in the media forgets is that they knew they were being recorded. They knew their visits would be on all the news stations, because that’s what happened after the first one. I even filed a motion to try to stop it. So her detractors who watched the video in which she told George what a great father he was—and to them that was proof she was lying about the sexual abuse—didn’t know the backstory, how she was trying to get George and Cindy to bond her out.

I do believe the way the state presented it—playing all those videos for a day and a half straight—helped the defense. However, the prosecutors should have selected the best ones that made their points instead of using all of them.

The other interesting story relates to the state playing a recording of Casey’s first phone call home after she was arrested. That’s the call where her girlfriend says to her, “If anything happens to Caylee, I’ll die,” and all Casey can say to her is, “Oh my God. Calling you guys is a huge waste of time. All I wanted was my boyfriend’s number.”

From a defendant’s standpoint, it was terrible. She sounded cold and heartless. All these people were trying to find out what happened to Caylee, and she’s being bitchy with them. The prosecution used the tape to bash her at the trial.

I was sympathetic to Casey’s trauma, but still, hearing her sound so heartless was infuriating. While it was being played I leaned over and said to her, “If this jury doesn’t kill you, I will.”