Jacksonville, Fla. \u2014 The man accused of orchestrating the 2022 Jacksonville beach murder of Jared Bridegan appeared in court Friday as attorneys argued over witness testimony and evidence ahead of trial. <\/p>\n
Mario Fernandez Saldana, wearing a green jail jumpsuit, appeared before a judge after Shanna Gardner\u2019s court appearance earlier in the day. <\/p>\n
Prosecutors accuse Fernandez Saldana of hiring a gunman to kill Bridegan, the ex-husband of his wife, Shanna Gardner. She also faces charges of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. <\/p>\n
During Friday\u2019s hearing, Fernandez Saldana\u2019s defense focused on getting more information on witness like Emmanuel Alexander. Defense attorneys questioned Alexander\u2019s reliability, pointing to deposition testimony in which they say he claimed to have self-diagnosed himself with dementia. Alexander also faces unrelated charges of attempting to kill his own wife and tampering with evidence. <\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n The prosecution argued Alexander came forward because he was disturbed by statements allegedly made by Fernandez Saldana. <\/p>\n \u201cI anticipate they\u2019ll ask him, \u2018Why did you come forward, Mr. Alexander? We\u2019ve not offered you a plea deal.\u2019 He\u2019s going to say, \u2018I was so offended by these statements by Mr. Fernandez,\u2019\u201d a prosecutor told the court. <\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: <\/b>Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/b><\/a>]<\/b><\/p>\n Defense attorneys argued prosecutors should not be allowed to question Alexander about the pending charges involving his wife because he would be unable to fully respond while that case remains active. <\/p>\n In Shanna Gardner\u2019s hearing, defense attorneys\u2019 requested information from the phone of Bridegan\u2019s widow, Kirsten. <\/p>\n \u201cWe are requesting that the court consider certain matters in camera because they directly relate to the defense theory, more specifically, the defense\u2019s intended theme at trial,\u201d defense attorney Kristen Nelson told the court. <\/p>\n [SIGN UP: <\/b>Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/b><\/a>] <\/b><\/p>\n Jury selection for Fernandez Saldana\u2019s trial is scheduled to begin Aug. 10. Jury selection in Gardner\u2019s case is expected to begin later in Auguster. <\/p>\n Click here<\/b><\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/b><\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jacksonville, Fla. \u2014 The man accused of orchestrating the 2022 Jacksonville beach murder of Jared Bridegan appeared in…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":973089,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5136],"tags":[3383,5229,151160,390533,34844,3188,723,165323,11561,7310,238371,390530,55987,11545,155630,163130,390534,425,390532,238368,123462,390531,390529,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-973088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-alexander","tag-america","tag-bride","tag-emmanuel_alexander","tag-fernandez","tag-fl","tag-florida","tag-gardner","tag-jack","tag-jacksonville","tag-jared_brigan","tag-jarrett_brigan","tag-jerry","tag-jessica","tag-jessica_salinas","tag-jessica_selena","tag-kristen","tag-local","tag-mario_fernandez","tag-mario_fernandez_saldana","tag-shaw","tag-shawna","tag-shawna_gardner","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117019214165411816","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/973088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=973088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/973088\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/973089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=973088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=973088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=973088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}