Casey Anthony’s dad could sue for defamation over rape, child murder claims, experts say
Casey Anthony’s estranged father could sue her for defamation after she claimed he raped her and killed her daughter, top lawyers told The Post.
The woman once called “America’s most hated mom” made the bombshell allegations in a new Peacock docu-series, in which she calls her ex-cop father George Anthony a “pedophile” and accuses him of being responsible for the death of two-year-old Caylee.
Anthony also accused her dad of having repeatedly raped her growing up. She initially made the claims at her 2011 trial for killing Caylee — in which she was acquitted — and now repeats them in the Peacock show.
George has previously denied both claims and refused to comment further.
If her claims are false, she could be in serious legal liability, New York intellectual property lawyer Richard Altman told The Post.
“If she said it at her trial, that would be privileged,” Altman explained. “If she says it outside of a court proceeding then of course it’s actionable and if she repeats it now, even though this happened years ago, in theory [her dad] has a year to go after her.”
Alan Lewis, a partner at Carter Ledyard & Milburn who specializes in defamation cases and criminal defense, explained that regardless of whether Anthony’s statements about her dad were true or false, her words are legally considered a “statement of fact” – opening up the possibility of a legal case.
“The statement so-and-so raped me is a factual statement that can be proven or disproven and therefore it qualifies as the kind of statement that can be defamation,” he said.
“Theoretically does he have a legally sufficient case to bring? It would seem so.”
Casey claims in the Peacock show that when she was growing up, her dad would “put a pillow over my face and smother me to knock me out.”
She described harrowing alleged abuse: “I’m sure there were times where I was incapacitated as a child where my body was limp and lifeless.”
The docu-series is the first time she has spoken out on video in over a decade, and it shows her breaking down in tears as she admitted to “dark” fears her father had abused Caylee, too.
“I know what he did to me — and that was my fear. I had one job — to keep her safe,” she said through tears of Caylee.
“I failed her again and again and again, because I still protected the person who hurt me,” she said of her dad. “I did protect my abuser — and protected her abuser. And that crushes me.”
If her father does bring a case, he would have to prove she made her claims with actual malice, Lewis added.
“Somebody like Casey Anthony who has suffered what she has – even in spite of her own past conviction for not telling the truth – might be a sympathetic enough person to a jury that should give her father pause for suing for defamation,” he claimed.
In the documentary, Casey gives a version of events different from what she told police after her mom Cindy called 911 to report Caylee missing on July 15, 2008 — a month after she had last been seen alive in Florida.
According to transcripts of two 911 calls, Cindy claimed her 3-year-old granddaughter had been missing for a month. She told police that she had “found my daughter’s car today and it smells like there’s been a dead body in the damn car.”
Casey then takes the phone and tells the operator Caylee had been taken by a nanny named Zenida Fernandez Gonzalez.
Casey was arrested the next day on charges of child neglect, giving false statements and obstruction. At the opening of her 2011 trial for murder, Casey’s lawyer admitted the babysitter never existed and then claimed Caylee had drowned in the family pool.
