Casey Anthony Guilty of Check Fraud, Ordered Back to Orlando
A misunderstanding involving Casey Anthony's sentencing for a 2010 check fraud offense is forcing the 25-year-old back to Orlando within 72 hours.
Anthony pleaded guilty in January 2010 to 13 counts of check fraud, admitting she stole a checkbook from a friend and wrote five checks totaling $644.25.
Judge Stan Strickland sentenced her to $5,517.75 in court costs and ordered Anthony to serve a year of probation in Orange County, Fla., Orlando news station WESH reported.
But the Department of Corrections appears to have misunderstood the conditions of Casey's probation, believing that Strickland's order called for the probation to run concurrently with Anthony's time in custody awaiting her trial on charges that she murdered her 2-year-old daughter Caylee in 2008.
Randy Means, spokesman for the Orange County State Attorney's Office, said prosecutors were surprised to receive a letter from the probation office indicating Anthony's probation was completed.
"I read the order," Means said. "The order said she was supposed to begin when she was released from her sentence."
"This is one of those cases that's never going to be over," retired Judge O.H. Eaton Jr. told WESH. "The intent was she be placed on probation. The Department of Corrections will take action to obtain her, so they can supervise her. It's like an electric light: on or off. You're on probation or you aren't."
Eaton said Anthony's attorneys can request she be permitted to serve her probation in another county or even in another state. "There's no real reason to think she's going to flee probation on a bad-check case," Eaton said.
In a verdict that shocked the country, Anthony was found not guilty on July 5 of murdering her daugher Caylee, but was convicted of lying to law enforcement officers about Caylee's disappearance and sentenced to four years in jail.
Anthony was given credit for time served in jail and was released on July 17.
Her whereabouts have been a mystery since.
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