Shanna Gardner's lawyers want the judge to dismiss the murder-for-hire case

JACKSONVILLE, Florida. – Lawyers for a woman accused of plotting with her new husband to murder her ex-husband in 2022 are seeking to dismiss the charges against her.

Shanna Gardner and her now estranged husband Mario Fernandez are charged with the premeditated murder of Gardner's ex-husband, 33-year-old Jared Bridegan. Both face the death penalty.

The couple is expected in court for a pre-trial hearing on Monday morning.

Investigators say Fernandez paid Gardner's former tenant Henry Tenon to kill Bridegan as part of a murder-for-hire plot with Gardner. Tenon has admitted to pulling the trigger in the 2022 ambush shooting in Jacksonville Beach.

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According to police, the father of four was shot dead as he tried to move a tire that had been placed on the road during the ambush.

Gardner's lawyers have filed a motion to dismiss the case, arguing that the state misrepresented text messages used as evidence in an earlier bail hearing.

Prosecutors presented the text messages between Gardner and two people in court, saying they showed her talking about hiring a hitman to kill Bridegan. But Gardner's lawyer argued the text messages were a hoax. Her defense team plans to call the witnesses to the stand to prove that.

At the “Arthur hearing” on May 15, Gardner was denied bail, but her lawyers say the state withheld exculpatory evidence and a detective lied under oath.

The lawyers also argued on Friday that certain evidence should be thrown out before the trial even began because lead attorney Jose Baez accused prosecutors of failing to hand over “crucial evidence” to the defense.

Lead attorney Jose Baez said the state did not disclose the messages before the bail hearing.

“This is a typical lie and cover-up by Detective Johns,” Baez said. “The fact that the prosecutors were present during the interviews is a completely different matter.”

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In its response, however, prosecutors pointed out that the text messages the state used at the hearing were included in a transcript sent to the defense in January.

In his motion, Baez also mentioned that after the hearing, two witnesses came forward to clarify the facts and made affidavits.

“Both witnesses have provided affidavits clarifying their position and essentially saying that these statements were taken completely out of context and are completely false,” Baez said.

Prosecutors said it would be up to the court or an expert to determine the value of the messages and whether they were part of a longer, ongoing hoax.

“The texts with Ms. Lee were not cited by the state as evidence that this was incitement, but to show exactly what they claim,” a prosecutor said. “To refute that argument, Ms. Jensen and Ms. Gardner were just joking.”

A woman who was named during the hearing told Gardner's attorney that Detective Johns lied on the stand when he said he tried to contact her.

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In their response, prosecutors said Johns made it clear that he did not remember attempting to contact the second woman because he did not have any case files with him in the courtroom.

The prosecution stated that if “Detective Johns' recollection was false, he will face impeachment proceedings any time he testifies in the future.”