Casey Anthony is unemployed, has not consumed alcohol or drugs and not made any money over the past month her probation officers have revealed, as a judge decides if she should pay $517,000 for the investigation to find her missing daughter. Continue reading after the jump.
‘She was cooperative and answered all the questions of her probation officer,’ said a spokesman for the Florida Department of Corrections where Anthony reported for probation at 6pm on Thursday.
The 25-year-old controversially acquitted of murdering her daughter Caylee told probation offers that she had not attended any classes, used or purchased illegal drugs or had any contact with law enforcement over the past 30 days.
It was the first monthly probation visit for the Florida mother who is serving one year probation for cheque fraud, unrelated to her murder trial.
The visit came as one of her lawyers for Casey Anthony accused prosecutors yesterday of ‘sour grapes’ for seeking to require her to pay back $517,000 spent investigating the her daughter’s disappearance.
‘I think it is time [prosecutors] accept the fact that they lost this case,’ defence attorney Cheney Mason argued at a court hearing, adding that in his view the reimbursement request had ‘nothing to do with justice.’
‘It has to do with outrage. It has to do with sour grapes,’ he said.
But prosecutors said the state never would have incurred the expense of a three-year investigation and seven-week nationally televised trial in Orlando this summer if Anthony had only told the truth.
Anthony, 25, was acquitted in July of killing her 2-year-old daughter Caylee, whose disappearance in 2008 sparked a nationwide search. At the time, Casey Anthony falsely claimed her daughter had been kidnapped by a nanny.
The toddler’s skeletal remains were later found in woods near the Anthony family’s home. Anthony’s defence team argued at trial that Caylee died in an accidental drowning in the family’s backyard pool.
A jury found Anthony guilty of misdemeanor charges of lying to detectives during the investigation, and the state wants to recoup the costs of investigating the false kidnapping claim.
Judge Belvin Perry said he expected to rule by September 22.
Prosecutor Linda Burdick argued that Anthony’s lies had switched on the ‘machinery of law enforcement’ in an expensive and all-out effort to find her missing daughter.
‘Once Miss Anthony set that machinery in motion by lying, there was no turning back in the investigation. She, to this day, has not given any other information as to what happened to that child,’ Burdick said.
Mason said Anthony might be liable for some expenses between July 16, 2008, when she told investigators that Caylee was kidnapped, and September 30, 2008, when investigators concluded Caylee must be dead.
But the lawyer objected to costs incurred in 2010 and 2011 for depositions and expert witnesses, many of whom testified on the failed murder charge.
Burdick argued that efforts spent on the lying and murder charges were inextricably linked.
‘Attempting to prove she was a murderer proved she was a liar,’ Burdick said.
Burdick and Mason told Perry there was no case law that would direct him on how to apportion costs on a defendant like Anthony who is found guilty of some charges but not on others.
Anthony, who has been declared indigent by the court, did not appear at the hearing. She is living in an undisclosed location while serving a year of probation.
