Is Casey Anthony Already Cashing In?
Yesterday, photos and video of Casey Anthony hanging out, checking her cell phone, and shopping at Old Navy surfaced on celebrity gossip site TMZ.
Today, The New York Post has the same photos, which show Anthony in a red Ohio State baseball cap, glasses, and faded jeans, strolling about an Ohio town—which eagle-eyed online commenters have identified as Columbus. (Anthony has several relatives in the area, according to TMZ.)
The photos and video were taken by celebrity photo agency SplashNewsOnline.
At first, speculation that TMZ had worked in conjunction with Anthony’s legal team to pay for the photos ran rampant. But The New York Post credits the photos to the news agency that took them, SplashNews, meaning the agency is the owner of the photos.
So the question is, how did SplashNews happen to know that Anthony was prowling around Ohio? Did one of its long-lens “photojournalists” just happen to be in town?
“Oh God, no,” says someone familiar with the workings of celebrity photo agencies. “There’s no one in Ohio.”
I’ve emailed and called SplashNews for a comment and will update this post once I hear back. I have also called and emailed Anthony’s lawyer, Jose Baez.
Often, photo agencies get tips from regular people about where a celebrity (or in this case, a notorious but acquitted murder suspect) is hanging out. SplashNews has an email address dedicated to this very thing on its site. So did someone in Ohio give Splash a tip that Anthony was in town?
Possible. But it’s also possible that Anthony’s team worked with Splash to sell photos of her—staging the Ohio walkabout. “That happens all of the time,” says the insider. “If she worked out a good deal, she’d get half or 75% of the [money for the] photos each time they were sold. How else is she going to make money?”