Casey Anthony files for bankruptcy, nearly $800,000 in debt
Casey Anthony is broke.
The Orlando, Fla., woman -- acquitted of killing her 2-year-old daughter in a trial that riveted the nation -- has $1,084 in assets and at least $792,119 in debt, according to bankruptcy documents filed in a Florida federal court and obtained by local media.
The bankruptcy documents were filed Friday, the same day an appellate court threw out two of Anthony’s four misdemeanor convictions.
The remains of Anthony’s daughter, Caylee, were found inside a trash bag near the family home in December 2008. Anthony, now 26, was acquitted of the killing but convicted of multiple counts of lying to investigators.
Anthony’s petition for bankruptcy laid out a financial situation drained by her trial, which became a media fixation. At one point, ABC News paid Anthony $200,000 for photographs, with the money then reportedly going toward Anthony’s pricey legal defense.
That money is gone now, replaced by debts to scores of people and businesses, many for unspecified legal fees and “consulting fees” from medical and forensic services, according to the disclosure.
Most of the amounts owed were listed as “unknown,” with the largest specified debt -- $500,000 -- belonging to Jose Baez, one of her defense attorneys.
In September 2011, the filing notes cryptically, Anthony “may have relinquished rights” to photographs of herself to Baez, adding that their value was “unknown.” Further details were not immediately available, and Baez’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Anthony, whose petition used her parents’ Orlando address, also owes $145,660 to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office for investigative fees, $61,505 in court costs to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and more than $68,000 in taxes and penalties to the Internal Revenue Service, according to the filing.
Anthony’s assets include $474 in cash and a “watch, pearl necklace, sapphire and opal rings, and miscellaneous sterling silver and costume jewelry” worth $200, the documents said. Anthony stated she had been unemployed for four years and listed no income.
Her bankruptcy attorney was listed as David L. Schrader.
Anthony is also the target of multiple lawsuits, according to the filing: Two defamation suits from Roy Kronk and Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez; two lawsuits for “unjust enrichment,” including for a Texas horseback search group that accused Anthony of lying to them about her daughter still being alive; and the state of Florida, seeking to recoup investigative costs.
Kronk, who found Caylee’s remains, is suing because Anthony’s attorneys raised the possibility that he had killed the girl.
Fernandez-Gonzalez claimed distress after Anthony made up a fake babysitter with her name and accused that babysitter of kidnapping Caylee.
During Anthony’s trial, however, Anthony’s defense said Caylee had accidentally drowned in the family pool.
Fernandez-Gonzalez’s attorney, Matt Morgan, called the bankruptcy filing a “calculated delay tactic.”
“We are not deterred and will stay the course,” Morgan told the Orlando Sentinel.
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