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Deputy Fired For Relationship With Missing Tot's Mom

The Associated Press

Court documents paint Casey Anthony, shown with attorney Jose Baez, as perplexed, scheming and unbalanced.

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The Associated Press

Published: August 27, 2008

Caylee Marie Anthony

ORLANDO - The Orange County Sheriff's Department said Tuesday it fired a deputy for lying about his relationship with the mother of missing 3-year-old Caylee Marie Anthony.

Authorities moved to fire Anthony Rusciano, a probationary employee, after a search of Casey Anthony's computer linked the two, agency officials said in a news release.

Rusciano had told investigators he met the woman briefly at a party, but they had no further contact.

A phone number for Rusciano had been disconnected.

The revelation came after it was reported that Casey Anthony tried to give her Caylee up for adoption before she was born, but her mother wouldn't let her, according to legal documents.

The documents paint the 22-year-old Florida woman as a perplexed, scheming and unbalanced person who repeatedly defended obvious lies in police reports.

The 400 pages released by prosecutors this week leave little hope that Caylee will be found safe. Casey Anthony says her daughter has been missing since June 9, but she didn't report it until more than a month later. She faces charges of child neglect, obstruction and making false statements.

The documents include a poem Casey Anthony wrote on July 7, eight days before she reported her daughter missing: "What is given, Can be taken away. Everyone lies. Everyone dies."

Prosecutors have called her a person of interest in what is appearing to be a murder case. She was freed last week on $500,000 bail and is on home confinement awaiting trial. Despite searches using divers and cadaver dogs, police have been unable to locate the girl.

The documents show a pregnant Casey Anthony, who gave birth to Caylee when she was 19, considered offering the child for adoption.

Kiomare Torres Cruz, Casey Anthony's friend from middle school through high school, said she once offered to take and care for Caylee because doctors told her she couldn't have kids of her own.

But Cruz said Cindy Anthony, Casey's mother, wouldn't have it.

"I said ... 'I'm strongly considering adopting the baby from you.' (Casey Anthony) said, 'That's a good idea,"' Cruz said in a police transcript. "But then she called me back saying that her mom pretty much has told her that no, she needs to keep the baby and that she's not giving it up for adoption. Even though she really did not want to have the baby."

Caylee's father died in a car crash a year after she was born, and he never knew his daughter, Anthony's family has said.

Anthony's attorney, Jose Baez, had no comment on what the documents said, but did try to prevent them from being released.

Casey Anthony has told investigators she was frightened and did all she could to find Caylee herself for a month before her mother persuaded her to tell authorities.

"I have spent every day since Monday, June 9, 2008, looking for my daughter," Casey Anthony wrote in a sworn affidavit signed July 16, the day of her arrest. "I have lied and stolen from friends and family to do whatever I could by any means to find my daughter. I avoided calling the police or even notifying my family out of fear. I have been, and still am, afraid of what has or may happen to Caylee."

Casey Anthony told police repeatedly that she left the child with her babysitter of roughly two years, then couldn't find them when she returned from work at an Orlando theme park. However, no one had
lived at that address in months, Anthony had no job and no woman by the babysitter's alleged name ever knew the mother and daughter, detectives say.

The documents detail at length the mistrust Anthony's friends and family - particularly her mother, a recent fixture on TV talk shows - seemed to have of the woman.

Cindy Anthony told one of Casey's friends her daughter was a "sociopath," and he should stop talking with her. She first wanted Casey Anthony arrested for allegedly disappearing with her money, the toddler and a family car for a month before the girl was reported missing. She told a 911 dispatcher that the car, which had been towed after being abandoned at a check-cashing business, smelled like someone had died in it. A man at the tow yard told detectives the same thing.

Casey Anthony admitted misleading investigators, according to a transcript of her lengthy interview with police, but repeatedly insisted she had done nothing to the girl.

Anthony insisted she was terrified not knowing where the girl was, though she didn't show any emotion, the documents say.

"If I really wanted to just get rid of her I would've left her with my parents and I would've left," she said, according to the transcript. "I would've moved out. I would've given my mom custody."

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