Skip to footer

Casey Anthony settles $100,000 search and rescue bill

Casey Anthony reached a settlement with Texas EquSearch, which spent $100,000 looking for Caylee, her "missing" daughter. Casey Anthony has nearly $800,000 in debt, according to her bankruptcy filing.

  • By Barbara Liston Reuters

| Orlando, Fla.

Casey Anthony, the Florida mother acquitted in the 2008 killing of her 2-year-old daughter, has reached a settlement with a search and rescue organization that spent $100,000 looking for her missing daughter, the group's lawyer said on Monday.

Anthony was acquitted in 2011 of the murder of her daughter, Caylee, in a trial broadcast live nationwide. She was found guilty of lying to investigators when she told them Caylee had been kidnapped and prompted a nationwide search for the girl.

The toddler's duct-taped body was found six months after her death and disappearance, dumped in the woods near Anthony's home.

Texas EquuSearch, which claimed it drained its coffers and brought in "countless" volunteers in a massive search for Caylee, sued after Anthony's lawyer told jurors in his opening statement during the trial that Caylee drowned in the family's backyard pool, and that Anthony knew she was not missing.

Texas EquuSearch lawyer Marc Wites said the organization decided against taking the case to trial. Anthony, 26, filed for bankruptcy in January, claiming she has just over a $1,000 in assets and nearly $800,000 in debt, according to a court filing.

Under the settlement, Anthony will not object to Texas EquuSearch being named as a $75,000 creditor in her bankruptcy case, and Texas EquuSearch will not object to Anthony's bankruptcy petition for discharge.

Anthony's most valuable asset is considered to be the rights to her life story.

Bankruptcy trustee Stephen Meininger wanted her creditors to benefit from her story, but Anthony's lawyers objected, raising constitutional and other issues.

Wites said he does not know whether Texas EquuSearch will receive any money through the bankruptcy court.

"Texas EquuSearch's mission and purpose is to help families and individuals to find their missing loved ones," he said. "That's the reason they helped the Anthony family in the first place. While they were searching for Caylee, they got calls from other families for help and had to turn them away."

Anthony still faces defamation lawsuits by a meter reader who found Caylee's body, and by Zenaida Gonzalez who sued after Anthony told investigators Caylee was kidnapped by a woman with a similar name and description.

(Editing by Kevin Gray and Jackie Frank)

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Casey Anthony settles $100,000 search and rescue bill
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2013/1022/Casey-Anthony-settles-100-000-search-and-rescue-bill
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe