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Calaroga Shark Media. Good morning. This is Daily Crime and
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Justice from Calaroga Media, powered by AI. I'm Garrett Fisher.
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It's Tuesday, September 15th, 2026. We told you yesterday we
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would be on the Largo trial every day this week,
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so that is where we start. A plastic surgeon is
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defending himself against a first-degree murder charge with no lawyer,
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no jury, and none of the motions his own attorneys
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filed in a case where the state of Florida is
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asking a judge to have him executed. In Los Angeles,
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the parents of Celeste Rivas Hernandez have sued, not just
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the man charged with killing their 14-year-old daughter. They have
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also sued his mother and his managers, and the theory
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is that the adults around him should have protected her.
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And in Jacksonville, something happened in the Jared Bridegan case
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that I have genuinely never seen before. His widow asked
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a judge to step down. So did the prosecutors. The
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same prosecutors who just won a first-degree murder conviction in
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that judge's courtroom asked her to remove herself from the case.
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She said no to both of them. Let's get into it.
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Stephen Causey was 41 years old. He was an attorney.
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On March 21st, 2023, he walked into his office building
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wearing a red sweater, stepped away from his desk to
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use the restroom, and was never seen again. His body
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has never been found. He was representing a client in
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a billing dispute against a plastic surgeon named Tomasz Kasowski.
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Kasowski is 47, Ivy League educated, and by the account
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of people in his field, was once regarded as a
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pioneer in reconstructive surgery. He is pleaded not guilty to
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first-degree murder, and he is presumed innocent. Prosecutors are seeking
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the death penalty. His trial began yesterday in Pinellas County,
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and since I told you the outline Monday, let me
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give you what the state actually says it has, because
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it is substantially more than I laid out. Investigators say
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surveillance video shows a man arriving at Kazi's office building
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in a pickup truck, going inside carrying a backpack, gloves,
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and a large box. Two hours later, the same man
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comes out wearing a different outfit, pulling a large cart
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with something on top of it. Police say they found
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blood in the restroom of that office. They say Kazi's
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DNA was in the trunk of Kosowski's vehicle. And when
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they arrested him, according to court records, they recovered a
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bloodied ballistic vest, duct tape, a paralyzing agent, syringes containing sedatives,
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brass knuckles, a taser, and roughly $ 300, 000 in cash. Those
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are allegations. None of it has been proven. And starting yesterday,
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one man in a black robe is the only person
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who will ever weigh it. Because here is the thing
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that makes this trial unlike any other in the country
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right now. Kosowski fired his lawyers. He waived his right
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to a jury twice, once for guilt and once for
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the penalty phase, which Florida requires separately because the state
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considers that decision that serious. He withdrew the motions to
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suppress evidence his own attorneys had filed, and he withdrew
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every motion challenging the death penalty. Judge Joseph Boulogne did
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not make this easy for him. The transcript of that
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exchange is worth hearing. Boulogne asked whether he understood his
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attorneys were experts in death penalty law. Kosowski said yes.
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Boulogne asked whether he understood that maybe he was not.
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Kosowski said yes. Bologna asked whether he still wanted to
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represent himself at a hearing about excluding the death penalty
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from his own case. Kosowski said yes. And then he said,
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I move that we strike them all. Bologna had told
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him something else that I keep thinking about. He told
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him that like a lawyer, he now had to decide
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what was in a client's best interest and that the
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only way the court could accept a jury waiver was
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if Kosowski told him he believed it was in his
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own best interest. So this man had to stand up
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and certify that giving away a jury in a capital
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case was good for him. And when Bologna asked why,
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he said, I really have to answer that. And the
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judge let it go. A profile published this week added
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a detail that stayed with me. It reported that when
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Bologna asked why he wanted to represent himself, Kosowski smirked.
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It also reported this. And it is the contradiction at
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the center of everything. Kosowski has asserted in court that
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he does not have a death wish, and he has
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also told a judge he wants nothing presented that might
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weigh against his execution. I am not going to try
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to square those two things, because I do not think
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they can be squared, and I am not qualified to try.
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What I will say is what I said yesterday. A
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judge who has watched this man for three years has
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found him competent, and that judge knows more than I do.
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A competent adult is allowed to make catastrophic choices about
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his own life. and a system that let judges override
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that would be worse than the one we have. The
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court did leave one door open. Jane McNeil, one of
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his former attorneys, was appointed to remain on standby in
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case he changes his mind. And Boulogne said that at
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the end of the guilt phase, he would check again
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whether Kosowski wants to keep representing himself. So if there
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is a conviction, there is one more moment where somebody
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asks him. One practical note about how this trial will run.
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There is no jury. so there is nobody to send
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out of the room. Objections get argued in front of
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the person deciding the case. There is no jury selection,
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no opening statement aimed at 12 strangers, and no instructions
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at the end. That is why this is expected to
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move quickly. Stephen Causey was 41. He was doing the
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most ordinary thing a lawyer does in this country, which
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is represent a client in a lawsuit. His family has
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never had a body to bury. And there is one
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more thing about a case with no body that is
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worth understanding because it is going to come up all week.
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Florida does not require a body to prove murder. It
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never has. What the state has to establish is that
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a person is dead and that the defendant caused it.
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And that can be built entirely out of circumstances. The
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last known movements, the forensic traces, the motive. The absence
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of any innocent explanation for a man vanishing from a
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bathroom in the middle of a workday and never touching
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a bank account again. Those cases are hard, and they
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are winnable. And in this one, the defendant just removed
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every procedural obstacle the state would ordinarily have to climb over.
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We will be on this one every day. Someone has
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to say his name. Celeste Hernandez was 14 years old.
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She was from Lake Elsinore, California. On Sunday, she would
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have turned 16. Her parents, Mercedes Martinez and Jesus Rivas,
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marked that birthday by releasing a new photograph of her
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and asking publicly that the man charged with killing her
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face the death penalty. And last week, through their attorney
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Patrick Steinfeld, they filed a 20-page wrongful death lawsuit in
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Los Angeles County Superior Court. The defendant is David Anthony Burke.
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who is 21 and performs under a stage name stylized
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with numbers. He has pleaded not guilty in the criminal
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case to first-degree murder with special circumstances, to one count
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of continuous sexual abuse of a child under the age
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of 14, and to one count of unlawful mutilation of
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human remains. A judge ordered him to stand trial in July.
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He is presumed innocent of all of it. As always
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on this show, I am not going to walk you
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through the evidence in that case. Nothing about what was
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done to a 14-year-old girl is content, and if you
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want it, it is available elsewhere. The civil suit is
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a different thing, and it is worth understanding. It alleges
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wrongful death, battery, sexual battery, childhood sexual assault, assault, false imprisonment,
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human trafficking, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. It claims
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the relationship began in November of 2023, when Celeste was 13.
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It seeks unspecified damages, punitive damages, and legal fees. All
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of that is an allegation. A complaint is a document
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one side writes. Nothing in it has been tested. Now
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here is the part that makes this legally interesting, and
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it is the part the coverage is mostly skipping. The
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suit does not stop at Burke. It also names his
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mother and his managers. And it accuses them of negligence,
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alleging that the adults and professionals around him helped facilitate
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a relationship with a child and failed to protect her
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over more than a year. That is the real reach
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of this filing, and it is the claim I will
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be watching. Because a negligence claim against a manager or
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a family member requires establishing that they owed a duty,
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that they knew or should have known, and that they
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could have acted. That is a genuinely hard case to make,
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and it is also the only mechanism in American law
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that ever forces the people around a powerful young man
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to answer for what they saw and did nothing about.
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We have watched this argument play out in the music
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industry before, and in gymnastics, and in the Catholic Church.
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The person who did the harm is one defendant. The
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structure that kept them insulated is a much harder one,
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and usually a much more consequential one. Two practical points,
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and then the thing that matters. First, this civil case
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is almost certainly not going anywhere for a long time.
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When a defendant faces a capital eligible murder charge, courts
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routinely stay civil proceedings because a defendant cannot be deposed
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without surrendering his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Expect this
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to sit on a shelf until the criminal case is resolved. Second,
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there is a tension worth naming out loud. Two weeks ago,
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David Burke told a Los Angeles court he could not
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afford a lawyer, and a judge found him indigent and
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appointed the public defender. Testimony in his own case put
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his career earnings above $ 10 million. Celeste's family has said
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publicly they believe he is not broke and that the
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money is sitting in corporations. A civil suit is one
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of the few tools that can actually find out. Civil
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discovery reaches financial records that a criminal court never looks at.
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If there are assets in an LLC somewhere, this is
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the proceeding that finds them. And I want to say
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one more thing, carefully. The family is publicly calling for
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the death penalty and simultaneously suing for money. I have
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seen people online treat that as a contradiction. It is not.
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Those are two entirely different systems with two entirely different purposes,
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and a family is allowed to use both. The district
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attorney has not decided whether to seek capital punishment. That
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decision is his, not theirs, and it will not be
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affected by a civil filing. What the lawsuit does say
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in the language of the complaint is that the conduct
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alleged was extreme and outrageous and exceeded all bounds of
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decency tolerated in a civilized community. That is not a
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rhetorical flourish. It is the legal standard for intentional infliction
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of emotional distress, and it is what a plaintiff has
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to prove. Celeste Rivas Hernandez was 14, Her parents waited
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more than a week after she was found before anyone
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could confirm it was her. On Sunday, they put out
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a new picture of their daughter because she would have
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been 16. There is one more thing in this filing
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worth flagging, and it is small and it is awful.
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The complaint states that after her remains were found, her
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parents had to wait more than a week before anyone
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could give them a positive identification. That is what the
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emotional distress claim is actually about, not a legal abstraction.
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Eight days of two people in Lake Elsinore not being
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told for certain whether the child they were looking for
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had been found. Burke is due back in criminal court
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on October 19th. Someone has to say her name, and
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it is hers, not his. When we come back, a
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murder victim's widow and the prosecutors who won the case
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both ask the same judge to leave. Jared Breidgen was 33.
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In February of 2022, he dropped his twins at their
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mother's house in Jacksonville Beach and was shot to death
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on a dark street while his two-year-old daughter sat in
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the back seat. On August 26th, a jury convicted Mario
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Fernandez-Saldana of first-degree murder and solicitation to commit a capital felony.
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Shauna Gardner, Breidgen's ex-wife and Fernandez-Saldana's wife, has pleaded not
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guilty and goes to trial in 2027. She is presumed innocent.
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Henry Tenen, the man the state says pulled the trigger,
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has pleaded not guilty and is presumed innocent. And now
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the case has turned into something I have not seen before.
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Back in July, Shana Gardner's defense attorneys asked Judge London
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Kite to order Kirsten Breidegen, the victim's widow, to hand
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over her cell phone. Their theory was that she had
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been in contact with other witnesses and with prosecutors, and
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they wanted the data. Both prosecutors and Kirsten Bridegan's own
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attorneys objected. Their argument was that she is not a
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suspect in anything. She is a victim, and under Marzi's law,
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which is written into the Florida Constitution, crime victims are
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guaranteed fairness, privacy, and due process. Kite denied the request
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at first. Then she met with Gardner's attorneys privately. Neither
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the prosecutors nor Kirsten Bridegan's lawyers were permitted to attend.
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Lawyers call that an ex parte meeting, meaning one side only.
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And after that meeting, Kite reversed herself and ordered Kirsten
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Breedigan to surrender her phone to a forensic firm hired
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by the defense team of the woman accused of arranging
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her husband's murder. She refused. On the fifth day of
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Fernandez Saldana's murder trial, in the middle of testimony, Kite
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learned that the order had not been complied with. She
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stopped the trial. She called attorneys in by Zoom. Gardner's
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lawyers sought criminal contempt, and according to reporting, the court
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was prepared to have the widow arrested. Kirsten Breidegen's attorneys
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filed an emergency petition with Florida's 5th District Court of
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Appeal that same day, and the appellate court stayed it.
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And then both Kirsten Breidegen and the state attorney's office
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filed motions asking Judge Kite to disqualify herself. I want