A man accused of stashing the gunshot-riddled body of his ex-mistress in a Colorado Springs storage unit before trying to flee to Hong Kong has an attorney befitting those made-for-TV allegations.
James Takchuan Woo has hired Jose Baez, the Miami defense attorney who led the charge to win a 2011 acquittal for Casey Anthony in what TIME magazine called "the social media trial of the century."
An attorney from Baez's Miami law firm appeared by telephone Friday on Woo's behalf in 4th Judicial District Court.
Baez, who wasn't available because of a pending case in Boston, will be lead counsel at Woo's upcoming trial, scheduled for May 15, said Michelle Medina, an attorney who works at the Baez Law Firm, with offices in Miami and Orlando. With less than three months to prepare, he is likely to request a trial postponement.
Out-of-state attorneys must pair up with a Colorado attorney in order to receive authorization from the Colorado State Supreme Court to practice in court here. Baez will be working with Richard Bednarski of Colorado Springs, Medina said. Woo, 39, who lives with his wife in San Francisco, faces first-degree murder and other charges in the death of Julie Tureson of Colorado Springs.
Investigators responding to a missing person's report lodged by one of Tureson's four children found her body April 22 handcuffed to her van inside a unit at The Public Storage in the 4400 block of East Platte Avenue.
Tureson had seven gunshot wounds, an El Paso County sheriff's detective testified at a September hearing. She was covered in a white sheet, and containers of sweet-smelling fluid were set out in an apparent bid to disguise the odor of her body.
Within hours of their grisly discovery, investigators tracked Woo to the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and arrested him as he awaited a flight to Hong Kong. Woo was extradited from Seattle in June.
Woo and Tureson were together for three years before they broke up in early April, court records said.
People who knew the couple told authorities that Woo paid Tureson thousands of dollars a month to be his companion. El Paso County sheriff's spokeswoman Jacqueline Kirby previously said Woo is known to frequent Tinder, a popular dating app, and issued a call for women who might have interacted with him.
Woo was previously represented by court-appointed attorneys from the Colorado Springs Public Defender's Office, but he fired them after persistent reports of attorney-client conflict. How he qualified for free legal assistance before hiring an out-of-state attorney with brand-name recognition isn't clear.
"Somebody who has a national reputation in the criminal defense community probably comes at a very, very high cost," said defense attorney Shimon Kohn of Colorado Springs.
A top Colorado defense team is likely to charge upwards of $250,000 for a complex first-degree murder case. Hiring someone with a national brand - and paying travel expenses - would quickly ratchet up the tab, attorneys say.
"Obviously, he has some money," Colorado Springs attorney Ed Farry said of Woo, estimating the contract could be worth up to $500,000.
Baez, a former Florida public defender, rose to fame in the Anthony case as the combative showman leading a defense few thought could be successful. He opened his remarks at trial by admitting Anthony had long been deceptive about the disappearance of her 2-year-old daughter Caylee - and won by pursuing a strategy to shift suspicion to Anthony's father.
"After I heard 'not guilty,' I had a moment,'' Baez told ABC's Barbara Walters during a media blitz in the wake of the acquittal. "I thought, 'My life is going to start to change.'"
How a star attorney ends up playing before an El Paso County jury remains to be seen.
"Some of them are going to have to recognize his name," Kohn said. "But I don't know what impact that would have on them."
Woo is expected to return to court March 17 for a motions hearings, but Medina hinted at a request for a continuance, saying Baez will be in a double-murder trial in Boston at that time.