Kirsten Bridegan Would Rather Face a Judge Than Hand This Over

The August 21 session of Mario Fernandez's murder trial broke in half before the first witness finished. Cross-examination of an FBI cell-data analyst was underway when Judge London Kite cleared the room at 9:30 a.m. over a deadline Kirsten Bridegan had just missed: her cellphone was due to the court at 9 for extraction on behalf of Shanna Gardner's defense team. Kite, who says she has ruled on this dispute across at least seven hearings, gave the widow 30 minutes and set a contempt hearing for the lunch break. Kite has said she might not have granted the subpoena if Kirsten were only a victim, but the widow is also a witness, and Gardner's confrontation rights carried the ruling. Kirsten's lawyers petitioned the Fifth District Court of Appeal, which stayed the order and shelved the contempt question for three business days.

Between those two rulings, jurors heard the state's most detailed walk through the digital record so far. A former ATF analyst mapped Fernandez's 2022 communications with accused gunman Henry Tenon, from heavy contact surrounding the February ambush down to total silence by summer's end, including a 27-minute call the day after the getaway truck's photos went public. She also described 5,000-plus Google deletions the morning of Fernandez's police interview. A JSO digital forensics detective closed the day with the August 2022 factory reset of Fernandez's phone and the 35 accounts restored afterward, none of which ever messaged Tenon again.

With jurors gone for the weekend, prosecutors put inmate Javell Ponder before the judge alone, and he claimed Fernandez identified the murder plan as his own. Defense counsel told Kite no human being would believe him, and she has not ruled. Testimony resumes August 24, another proffered witness is waiting, and Kirsten Bridegan's three days are already counting down.

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