By Martie Hevia | Blue Beach Song™

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Day 33 – July 1, 2011 – Friday

The Prosecution’s List of Rebuttal Witnesses for July 1, 2011

• First Prosecution Rebuttal Witness: John Camperlengo – Chief Compliance Officer at Gentiva Services.
• Second Prosecution Rebuttal Witness: Deborah Polisano – Cindy Anthony’s former supervisor at Gentiva.
• Third Prosecution Rebuttal Witness: Dr. Bruce Goldberger – Professor of Toxicology at the University of Florida.
• Fourth Prosecution Rebuttal Witness: Dr. Michael Warren – Director of the Human Identification Lab and Anthropology Professor at the University of Florida.
• Fifth Prosecution Rebuttal Witness: Kevin Stenger – Forensic Computer Examiner for Orange County Sheriff’s Department.
• Sixth Prosecution Rebuttal Witness: Sandra Osborne – Forensic Computer Examiner for Orange County Sheriff’s Department.
• Seventh Prosecution Rebuttal Witness: Yuri Melich – Detective for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department and Lead Detective in the Casey Anthony case.

The Prosecution’s Rebuttal Witnesses:
Perjury & Premeditation

The day began at 8:52 a.m. ET with a hearing outside the presence of the jury, where the Defense continued to argue the rebuttal witnesses and evidence the Prosecution was planning to present. The Defense wanted the evidence excluded, but the Judge gave them the balance of the morning to review and prepare for the Prosecution’s rebuttal.

Judge Perry was quite annoyed, mostly with the Defense, saying, “We will be in recess subject to call. You can take as much time as you want, but you have jurors back there, and they have been sequestered. I hope this is a real problem and not an imaginary problem. If I find out this is an imaginary problem… because these folks are ready to return to their homes. Tell the jury that we will be in recess indefinitely.”

And so we all waited from 9:15 a.m. ET (6:15 a.m. PT) until 1:37 p.m. ET when the jury was called back in.

John Camperlengo

The Prosecution called their first rebuttal witness, John Camperlengo, the Chief Compliance Officer at Gentiva, Cindy Anthony’s former employer. Mr. Camperlengo came with records detailing Cindy Anthony’s log-ins, emails, and computer activities.

The bottom line was that Cindy Anthony perjured herself when she had testified to being home on March 17th and March 21st of 2008, at the times when the Google searches on chloroform were made. Mr. Camperlengo showed incontrovertible proof that Mrs. Anthony was at work, using her desktop terminal, in her office. There were emails she wrote, received and deleted on those days; there were changes and updates made to her patient records; and more importantly, all of it was done on a closed network system that cannot be accessed from home or anywhere else; a system where you need a unique user ID and a password that is changed every 90 days; on a system that logs you out if the terminal is inactive for more than 5 hours. [This proved that Mrs. Anthony lied, under oath, that she had been able to work from home and indeed was home on those days to make those Google searches.]

Deborah Polisano

The second rebuttal witness was Deborah Polisano, Cindy Anthony’s former supervisor, who testified that, unlike what Mrs. Anthony had said, it would be illegal for the records to show that she was at work when she was getting compensated time off. [Unlike what Mrs. Anthony testified to under oath, her supervisor did not regularly ‘fix’ her time-card to show she was at work when she was actually taking compensated time off.]

Ms. Polisano’s testimony differed from Mr. Camperlengo’s testimony that five hours of computer inactivity would be required before the user was logged out. Ms. Polisano was specifically asked by the prosecutor, Mr. George, how long the computer would have to be unused before it automatically logged the user off and she replied, “Fifteen minutes.” [The difference might be explained by Ms. Polisano setting a more cautious office policy of requiring that 15 minutes be the maximum time of computer inactivity before a user is logged off. My guess would be that the 15 minute timeframe is more consistent with protecting sensitive computer medical records. The five hour timeframe would allow too much time for an unauthorized person to access and/or alter medical records.]

Dr. Bruce Goldberger

Mr. Ashton had Dr. Goldberger, a professor of toxicology, rebutt Dr. Spitz assertion that the black flecks inside Caylee’s cranium was decomposed organic material. A cranial wash was done and the testing of the materials showed there was nothing detected that contained organic or decomposition materials.

Dr. Michael Warren

The fourth rebuttal witness was Dr. Warren, a professor of anthropology, that was there to rebutt Dr. Spitz and his assertion that forensic pathologists have to saw open a skull, in fact, he felt it was unnecessary and a bad idea because as a result you have altered the evidence for another analyst.

The Forensic Computer Examiners

Then the Prosecution brought in their big finale, the two forensic computer examiners for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, who, at the request of the prosecutor, Linda Burdick, searched the Anthony’s desktop computer, where the chloroform searches had been found, to look for the things which Mrs. Anthony claimed she had also searched on Google.

The first forensic computer examiner, Kevin Stenger, searched the Internet history and expanded the search to include data from March 4-21 of 2008 for specific keywords: chlorophyll, hand sanitizer, neck breaking, bamboo shoots, Gentiva, and dogs. He found no searches for chlorophyll, even though he had accounted for misspellings by truncating chlorophyll to “chlor.” There were no searches for sanitizer. He did find a Google search for “neck breaking,” and it was typed into the Google search window as “neck,” a space, and “breaking” and it was definitely not a pop-up video as Mrs. Anthony had claimed. There were also no searches for bamboo shoots and no attempts to access a Gentiva website. He used multiple forensic tools to verify this data, including CacheBack, Encase, a hex editor and nothing came up.

The second forensic computer examiner, Sandra Osborne, was asked to search the entire hard drive for certain keywords, including chlorophyll, hand sanitizer, bamboo shoots, and Gentiva. The only reference found in the entire computer to chlorophyll was in the Windows dictionary. Hand sanitizer was found nowhere on the hard drive, however bamboo figurines, bamboo furniture, bamboo flooring, and other bamboo items were found, but not bamboo as a poisonous substance. Finally, there were no indicators of access to a Gentiva website.

Yuri Melich

The last witness, appropriately so, was Yuri Melich, lead detective in this case. He was asked to check the cell phone records for Cindy Anthony, for George Anthony and for their home landline phone records. Since Mrs. Anthony, in her testimony, claimed that she saw the pool ladder attached to the pool on June 16th, 2008 and immediately called George, her husband, to see if he had left the ladder up on the pool, naturally, the Prosecutor asked the Detective to check if Cindy’s cell phone records or home phone records show a call going out to George Anthony’s cell phone on June 16th and none were found on either phone.

During cross-examination Mr. Baez brought up that George Anthony had multiple cell phones, and Detective Melich claimed he did not know that.

The Conclusion of the Presentation of Evidence

The Prosecution then declared that they had no further rebuttal witnesses and the Judge excused the jury to ask the Defense if they were going to put Ms. Anthony on for their rebuttal, but Mr. Mason said they would not.

At 4:55 p.m. eastern time (ET), the Judge called the jury back and said to the jury, “This concludes the presentation of all evidence we will convene on Sunday for closing arguments. Please remember all my admonitions. You may be excused.”

The Defense Motions for Mistrial
After the jury had been excused, the Defense renewed all of their motions for mistrial and they were denied, except their most recent motion for mistrial tied to the constitutionality of the death penalty, which the Judge will reserve his decision until just before the verdict comes in from the jury.

Mr. Mason for the Defense entered an acquittal motion, based on the reasonable inference that it was an accident. He said, “The prosecution fantasy of the duct tape or chloroform as the murder weapon, depending on which week of the trial it was, how she died, when, and where and who may have been present, those question have not been answered. No evidence of premeditation. No evidence of a felony murder. Elements as to counts one, two, and three have not been proven. What they have proven is that Ms. Anthony lied to many people, for many reasons, that the child was dead, and… what else? Oh, yes, they’ve proven that she was a good mother. Chloroform may or may not have been found or used. No evidence that this duct tape was put on the child’s face before death. The chloroform is all confusion. No evidence that the child was killed by it? NO! This should not be left to guessing by the jury.”

However, the Judge said, “Acquittal motion is denied.”

[The closing arguments will begin Sunday morning at 9:00 a.m. ET.]

Final Thoughts

Astonished at Cindy’s ability to lie, is my final thought after today. She lies with the same ease and confidence her daughter has and with the same need to add excessive or embellished details to the lies. It is that need to add details and embellishments to their lies that appears to be the downfall of both mother and daughter.

What they failed to realize is that when they lied to the police, unlike lying to their friends or family or co-workers, the police can subpoena records and investigate the details of their story, and as the investigators peeled away the details of those stories, one by one, they exposed the lies.

Casey’s details with the kidnap story included the babysitter’s apartment number where she claimed to have been dropping Caylee off and had last dropped Caylee off on June 16th, an apartment that had been vacant for six months, proving she could not have been bringing Caylee there. The outcry witnesses, her co-workers at Universal, Jeff Hopkins and Juliette Lewis, whom she claimed to have told about Caylee being kidnapped, they turned out to be fictional people who did not work at Universal. The detectives checked on those details and proved her to be a liar.

Cindy’s details on the stand about being home on March 17 and March 21 of 2008 to conduct the Google searches related to chloroform, she gave a great deal of detail, describing searching for chlorophyll, bamboo shoots, claiming that a pop-up video for neck-breaking skateboarding feats explained the neck-breaking references, logging on to her work website to work from home, and claiming her supervisor routinely ‘fixed’ her time-cards to show her working even though she was taking compensated time off. All of tehm were proven to be lies: there were no searches for chlorophyll on the Internet and no mention of chlorophyll anywhere on the hard drive , except for the word in a Windows dictionary. The “neck breaking” was a typed in Google search. Her work network has no ability to be accessed remotely, and it showed her second-by-second activity on her terminal in her cubicle at work during those hours that someone was at home making those chloroform searches. And her supervisor who testified that she has never ‘fixed’ someone’s time-card to show they are at work, when they are taking time off. So many details peeled away, one by one to expose the lies.

And the all important pool ladder, which Cindy claimed she saw left attached to the pool on June 16th, immediately calling George Anthony to see if he had left the ladder attached to the pool. That was proven a lie with the extra detail about calling George Anthony. Yuri Melich was asked to look at the phone records and Cindy Anthony made no calls to her husband on June 16th, not from her cell phone and not from her home phone, and no call appeared on George Anthony’s phone.

Although I understand Cindy’s need as a mother to want to protect her daughter from the death penalty, I am astonished at her masterful ability to lie, just like her daughter, with such ease, agility and confidence. Perhaps Jose Baez is not too off the mark with his theory of dysfunction in the family, but it still does not excuse or explain what happened to Caylee Marie Anthony.

I wonder what the jury thinks of all this… I guess we will all find out soon enough.

What are your thoughts?

Casey Anthony Trial | Day 34 – Daily Updates (Thoughts & Observations) – Coming Soon

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