JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The estranged husband and wife accused of orchestrating the ambush murder of Jared Bridegan in 2022 will see each other for the first time in over a year when they appear together in court Friday.
Shanna Gardner and Mario Fernandez have appeared in court separately, but starting at 9 a.m. Friday, they will face the judge together as co-defendants in the murder of Bridegan, Gardner’s ex-husband.
Although they are being tried together, Gardner and Fernandez have separate attorneys. Gardner is represented by high-profile defense attorney Jose Baez, who has requested a mountain load of discovery from prosecutors.
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Bridegan was shot multiple times at close range in February 2022 after dropping his older two children off at Gardner’s house. Police said he was ambushed with his toddler daughter in the backseat of his SUV after someone left a tire blocking the road.
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Gardner and Fernandez are each facing charges of first-degree murder, solicitation to commit first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and child abuse in connection with Bridegan’s death.
Along with Gardner and Fernandez, Henry Tenon, who once rented a home from Fernandez, is charged in the conspiracy to kill the father of four in Jacksonville Beach. Tenon pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and has agreed to testify against others involved in the case.
Gardner and Fernandez both face the death penalty if they’re convicted.
Citing a “breach of confidentiality,” Fernandez’s attorneys recently asked for State Attorney Melissa Nelson’s office to be disqualified from trying the case altogether.
In that 63-page filing, Fernandez’s attorneys say prosecutors are using privileged and private communications, including text messages and emails, as evidence.
Prosecutors filed a 13-page response Thursday, saying the defense motion was improper and lacked lawful grounds. They said a simple oversight by a third party was to blame.
“The oversight, which involved uploading a few emails and one text between the Defendant and his attorney(s), was an unintentional act by the third-party vendor,” the state’s response said.
The statement went on to say that after realizing what happened, the prosecutor “contacted the defense teams to alert them to the oversight and immediately disabled the platform to ensure none of the emails or the text were reviewed by anyone. No one from the prosecution team or the State Attorney’s Office reviewed any privileged emails or texts.”
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