Casey Anthony Must Pay $97,676 for Costs of Investigation – Court Orders

Casey Anthony may have walked free from her murder trial, however, her lies told to investigators during the search for her daughter Caylee will cost her. Today, Judge Belvin Perry, who ruled over the murder trial, has ordered Anthony to pay over $97K in investigative costs which the state incurred during the search for little Caylee.

According to reports, prosecutors and the government agencies involved in the search for the 2 year-old girl were asking for just over 5 times that amount for their expenses. The $500,000 in expenses was requested by the state because Anthony had repeatedly lied to investigators during the search, and in fact, according to her defense, knew where her daughter was and that she was already deceased.

The half million dollars in expenses by the state also included the time during which the state prepared and executed its murder case against Casey Anthony. Judge Perry ruled that the costs should only cover the period when detectives were investigating the case as a missing person search, but not the homicide investigation. Based on that information, the judge arrived at a sum of $97,676 to be returned to the state by Anthony.

The judge ruled that the prosecution was entitled to only $50 pursuing the case in court. The rest of the judgment breaks down as follows: $61,500 to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, $10,283 to the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation in central Florida, and $25,837 to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office.