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Casey Anthony has returned to Florida, her lawyers say. |
ORLANDO, Fla. - Casey Anthony should be required to serve probation for check fraud because it was impossible to enforce the sentence when she was jailed while awaiting trial on charges of murdering her 2-year-old daughter, Florida’s attorney general said yesterday.
Anthony’s lawyers - who say she is now back in Florida - filed an appeal in state court last week arguing she had already served the probation sentence while she was jailed on the murder charge. Attorney General Pam Bondi disagrees.
“Legally, it is clear that a defendant cannot serve probation while incarcerated,’’ the attorney general’s office said in a filing to block the appeal.
Anthony was acquitted early last month of murdering her daughter, Caylee, in a case unrelated to the check fraud, and she was released from the Orange County Jail. Since then she has kept a low profile, and her exact whereabouts have been secret.
Circuit Judge Stan Strickland sentenced Anthony to a year of probation in January 2010 after she pleaded guilty to stealing checks from a friend. At the time, Strickland said Anthony should serve the probation upon her release, but those instructions never made it into a written order. Corrections officials interpreted the sentence to mean Anthony could serve the probation while she was in jail.
If the order is upheld, Anthony has until noon Friday to report to the probation office.
© Copyright 2011 Globe Newspaper Company.
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