Casey Anthony Agrees To Settlement With TX Company Who Searched for Baby Caylee
Casey Anthony and her lawyers were able to reach a settlement with a Texas based company that specializes in search and rescue after they went on a month's long search for Caylee Anthony.
Texas EquuSearch, which claimed to have spent a large sum of money searching for Caylee, had originally sued after Anthony's lawyer told jurors during the trial's opening statement 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.
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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.
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'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.
Anthony previously agreed to pay $25,000 to settle a dispute in her bankruptcy case pertaining to the rights to sell her life story, documents show.
The parties involved asked a judge to order bankruptcy trustee Stephen Meininger to "compromise a controversy between the Estate and the Debtor relating to intellectual property rights."
The order would also pertain to "the right of publicity and commercialization of the Debtor's life story," which could have monetary value in the future.
Meininger had stated that Anthony had a right to commercialize her story, which would became property of the bankruptcy estate when she filed for it.
