Casey Anthony fights call for questioning in defamation suit
July 14, 2011
Casey Anthony will invoke her Fifth Amendment rights if forced to sit for questioning in a defamation case two days after her upcoming release from jail, her attorneys said in a court motion Thursday.
Anthony, who was acquitted last week of killing her 2-year-old daughter Caylee, is being sued by a woman whose name she gave to police as her child’s nanny. Lawyers for the woman, Zenaida Fernandez Gonzalez, have asked a judge to make Anthony sit for a deposition in that lawsuit on Tuesday.
But Anthony’s lawyer in the civil case, Charles Greene, said his client can’t be forced to sit for a deposition so soon after a “grueling” trial that left her “emotionally and mentally exhausted.” In addition, he said the deposition is scheduled on a day that he will be in trial on another case, and that Anthony “would have no viable choice but to assert her Fifth Amendment rights” if the proceeding goes ahead.
“Given the inadequate time to prepare and discuss the issues, that would likely be the only advisable course of action,” he wrote. “Consequently, the deposition would be nothing more than yet another media spectacle and frenzy.”
Anthony was found not guilty of killing Caylee on July 5 but was convicted of four misdemeanor counts of lying to investigators probing the girl’s disappearance. The verdict stunned observers of the highly publicized trial.
Lawyers for Gonzalez have asked for an emergency order that would force Anthony to sit for a deposition next week. In their request, they wrote that they expect Anthony to leave the Orlando area and change her name following her scheduled release Sunday, “making it impossible to ever depose her.”
But Greene responded that after “all the grandstanding and hyperbole,” the case is no different than any other lawsuit and depositions should be scheduled after a conference with lawyers and the judge.