JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Two people accused of planning and carrying out the murder of a father of four in Jacksonville Beach are back before a judge Monday morning.
Mario Fernandez-Saldana and Shanna Gardner both face first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, solicitation to commit a capital felony and child abuse charges in the death of Gardner's ex-husband, Jared Bridegan.
Bridegan was shot to death in what investigators describe as a murder-for-hire plot in February 2022.
Fernandez-Saldana and Gardner have pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Before criminal proceedings can continue, two issues must be resolved: contested documents and the defense's motion to disqualify the State Attorney's Office Fourth Judicial Circuit.
Both defense teams are asking for the State Attorney's Office Fourth Judicial Circuit to be removed from the case over allegations of mishandling attorney-client privileged communications.
In court filings, the defense teams for Fernandez-Saldana and Gardner allege that when the pair's Apple devices were seized and their iCloud and Google drives were downloaded, both had already retained lawyers.
The defense argues that it alerted the prosecution that there were attorney-client privileged communications on the devices, according to court filings. The prosecution created a so-called "taint team" to redact attorney-client privileged materials before investigators could review the information, the defense argues.
While there were items redacted, there are two documents in question that the prosecution says are admissible and the defense argues are privileged.
Gardner's attorneys also filed a motion to dismiss the indictment against her, calling the State Attorney's Office conduct "patently improper" and "egregious."
In court on March 7, Judge London Kite, who is assigned to the case, said since it potentially involves attorney-client privileged materials, she did not want to view them and an independent judge, the Honorable Robert Foster, was appointed.
Foster was given unredacted copies of the contested documents and all other materials that were originally redacted as privileged.
In Monday's hearing, Assistant State Attorney Alan Mizrahi argued that Judge Foster should be the one to decide if the State Attorney's Office Fourth Judicial Circuit stays on the case since he has seen the unredacted communications and he would be best suited to decide if there was prejudice. Mizrahi argued that knowing the content of the messages matters.
"If the court is not going to know what the content is, it puts the court at a disadvantage in determining what prejudice exists, if any, and that is why we filed this motion," told Mizrahi.
Jesse Dreicer, representing Fernandez, and Patrick Karody, representing Gardner, both want Judge Kite to make the decision. Dreicer argued that was the plan all along.
"This yet another example of the State of Florida not following the procedures that are set forth either by agreement or court order in this case. This whole issue stems from an agreement the state and I made at a pretrial hearing before my client was even arrested to make sure that our attorney-client privilege information would not be looked at and then it got looked at," told Dreicer.
Patrick Karody, the defense for Gardner, says the crux of his motion is what he alleges was substantial misconduct.
"That would be the actions by the prosecution team, that includes the State Attorney's Office, ATF and the Jacksonville Beach Police Department that there was this agreement and they all willfully and intentionally sort of disregard it and then start going through materials that they knew were carbon copies of the phones they were not allowed to touch," tells Karody.
Judge Kite said she will take the issue under advisement and issue her order in writing. The next court date is set for April 4.