Why Mario Fernandez's Check To The Gunman Says WHAT

A prosecutor stood in court and dropped the one charge that existed because Jared Bridegan's two-year-old daughter was in the car when he was shot. Four days later, that same prosecutor told the judge the state has overwhelming evidence of a conspiracy — and that someone else drove away from the murder scene in a pickup truck. Nobody has been charged with driving it.
That contradiction sits at the center of the Bridegan murder-for-hire trial, which opened in Jacksonville after its star witness upended the case. Henry Tenon confessed to being the gunman and agreed to testify against Mario Fernandez and Shanna Gardner as part of a plea deal. Four years and one day after the shooting, he asked a judge for a trial instead, and prosecutors didn't object.
Fernandez's defense has spent three years cutting into the state's case — half the original charges dropped, the death penalty removed, and a judge blocking testimony under a spousal privilege ruling. Their explanation for the money is simple: checks from a family rental company covered landscaping and roof repairs, and nothing was paid before Bridegan died. One of those checks, for $5,000, allegedly carried the memo "Kickstarter" and "Good luck!"
The state answers with more than three dozen calls between Fernandez and Tenon during the month of the killing, and a jailhouse informant who says Fernandez laid out the conspiracy himself and tried to pin the murder on Jared's widow.
Fernandez has pleaded not guilty. His trial runs August 17 through 28, with Gardner's case and Tenon's own March 2027 date still to come.
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