Judge to rule May 13 on whether to remove State Attorney’s Office from Jared Bridegan murder case

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — No decision was made Thursday on whether to remove local prosecutors from the case of a 2022 murder of a St. Johns County father of four.

Jared Bridegan’s ex-wife, Shanna Gardner, and her estranged husband, Mario Fernandez Saldana, are accused in a murder-for-hire plot that led to Bridegan being killed in Jacksonville Beach.

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Judge London Kite was set to make a ruling that would determine whether local prosecutors would be taken off the case, which is a decision Action News Jax has been waiting on for several months.

However, Kite said she received new documents Thursday morning that she needed to review.

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Attorneys representing both Gardner and Fernandez Saldana claim the State Attorney’s Office had access to legally protected materials stored in Gardner’s iCloud, which they argue is a violation of rights.

Prosecutors said those protected materials, however, were never reviewed.

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“They have made no showing that their attorney-client privilege was ever violated by anybody,” Prosecutor Alan Mizrahi said previously.

“The fact that the government took passion of this information alone, that fact alone, is sufficient to attach liability, one, and to impose a sanction on the government,” Ronald Sullivan, who represents Gardner, said previously.

The ruling on the motion is now set for May 13 at 9 a.m.

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