Law&Crime Sidebar - Vile New Charges for Teacher Accused of Sex with Teens in ‘Scream’ Mask

Episode Date: May 28, 2025

Former Indiana substitute teacher Brittany Fortinberry now faces more than forty felony counts related to alleged child sexual assault and abuse. Prosecutors filed the additional charges after more young witnesses came forward to talk to police, including Fortinberry’s own son. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber discusses the latest developments with Indiana trial attorney Andrew Baldwin.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: Check out https://americanfinancing.net/sidebar or call 866-891-2821 to learn how homeowners are saving $800 a month on average. NMLS 182334, www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org HOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger, Christina O'Shea & Jay CruzScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson & Juliana BattagliaGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. A former substitute teacher now faces more than 40 charges in Indiana court as more victims come forward with claims that she sexually assaulted them, including her own child. As the mountain of accusations grows, we are digging into the latest details, what the new charges can mean for her trial, and if she's convicted, what she could be looking at in terms of punishment. Welcome to Sidebar. Presented by Law and Crime, I'm Jesse Weber. Just when we thought that the charges against Brittany Fortenberry couldn't get any worse,

prosecutors have now added on more sexual abuse counts that include incest, allegations. Now I want to warn you about something. I've been doing this show for a while now. We've covered pretty much every crime you can imagine. Some pretty horrific stories. But I tell you, this one is so disturbing. We're not even going to get into the most graphic details in this new probable cause affidavit. It's disgusting to say the least. But we do have to take a look at these latest developments, how it could impact the legal case, what this means. So just fair warning. about what we're talking about here. Now, we have been following former substitute teacher Brittany Fortenberry's case since she was originally arrested on child sex crimes charges

back in November. And every time we learn new details about the allegations against this now 31-year-old, they seem to get worse and worse and worse. Right now, Fortinberry's locked up in the Morgan County jail in Indiana after she allegedly had sex with multiple teenage boys in the Martinsville area. According to multiple affidavits that were filed in Fort Berry's case, she was first charged with two counts of dissemination of matter harmful to minors and harassment using a computer network or other electronic communications. Police had alleged that Fort Berry had sent two boys' inappropriate videos of sex toys, a stripper pole in her home, even nude pictures on apps like Snapchat and Instagram. But then what happened was more and more alleged victims started to come forward to police. the claims got broader and creepier. Other teens confirmed that they not only went to Fortenberry's home, but they had allegedly

participated in group sex, including while wearing a scream mask, a scream mask from the horror movie franchise. Those are the allegations. So Fort Berry faced additional charges in February, and again in April, and now, as of May 22nd, Fort Berry faces a whopping 41 charges connected to sex crimes involving children. It's kind of difficult to grasp. It's difficult to imagine. So we're going to dig into what a new victim, the youngest so far to come forward, what this person had to say when speaking to police about the experiences that they had with Fortenbury.

But to do that, I'm not going to do it alone. I want to bring in Indiana trial attorney, Andrew Baldwin, who is such a valuable asset in these kinds of cases. Andrew, you have handled a lot of cases having to do with sexual abuse of children. I have to imagine these are the most difficult cases, right? For lawyers, police, courthouse personnel, I have to imagine that. Yeah, I think, you know, you can have a murder. Good to see you, Jesse. You can have a murder case with some really graphic photographs of, you know,

dead people, you know, in blood and all that. But the thing that really causes, you know, concern in a courtroom when you're trying the case both as a prosecutor or as a defense lawyer is how is that jury going to respond when they start hearing graphic details from children of what they say happened and it just even gets way worse when there's actual photographs or video which today's world with the phones being so accessible to you know perpetrators that are actually committing these crimes we unfortunately see way too much video as well and what's interesting too is that can be a real leverage point for prosecutors as they're trying to get a

case worked out but it also can be a leverage point for defense lawyers as we're trying to say to the prosecutor do you really want your your victim to go through a trial and all that so there's all kinds of victims victims right multiple people having to testify yeah in this case that's that's a whole other thing here is as a defense lawyer i'm sitting here thinking about this case and how I would handle it. And one of the things that I think should be looked into by Alan Lydie, who's the defense attorney, I know Alan, and is do we, do I as a lawyer try to separate out these these alleged victims, their accounts related to them to put the prosecutor on notice that, hey, you might have to try five or ten different, depending on how many

alleged victims come out. You may have to try that many jury. trials. By the way, not to take away from this in any way, but there's another serious issue I want to talk about real quick. Can we talk for a second about debt? Yeah, debt doesn't just show up one day. It builds little by little, credit cards, car loans, medical bills. Suddenly you're juggling, you're feeling stuck. Here's the great news. We've got American financing as our sponsor. So they help homeowners like you every day. They use your home's equity and they roll that high interest debt into one simple affordable payment. They are saving homeowners an average of $800 a month.

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American financing, salary-based consultants, they're ready to listen, they're ready to help. Take back your peace of mind with American financing. Call American financing today at 866-891-2821. That's 866-891-2821. or go to Americanfinancing.net slash sidebar. What is the legal argument to separate the cases? Well, in Rule of Evidence 404B,

talks about how you cannot, basically where there's smoke, there's fire, that kind of thinking cannot and should not happen to a jury. In other words, you can't say, just because she's accused of having sex with alleged victim number one in a certain situation doesn't mean that she had sex with alleged victim number three or four or seven in an entirely different day on an entirely different situation. And especially when you've got these civil lawsuits starting to be filed and you could really

have some people coming out of the woodwork. And I mean, I hate saying this, but you have to factor it in. Is it possible that people are just going to start glomming on and saying, oh, yeah, So my kid was also molested by this woman and we want to be a part of the civil lawsuit. And now, you know, you could throw all that in front of a jury. And it's really not, in spite of the horribleness of what she's accused of doing, she's still innocent until proven guilty, of course, at this stage. And you want to follow the rules of evidence here and make sure that she's not being found guilty by a jury just because there's so much stuff out.

there that the jury has no other option in its mind. Yeah, moving even to the side of how do you get a jury that hasn't read about this case? You know, this is a pretty, this is a high profile one. We're covered on, you know, on a program that has a national reach. I mean, I'm sure what that community might be tough, but you, I wanted to ask you about something. So I had mentioned that I'm not going to be talking about the most graphic parts of this new affidavit of probable cause from Detective Patrick Williams. But in a note to us, before you came on, you said this is one of the most detailed probable cause affidavits you've ever seen? It might be the most detailed probable cause affidavit for any crime that I've ever seen.

I mean, we defense lawyers get irritated when there's a kind of a generic bland probable cause affidavit. It's frustrating because we want to, you know, see exactly what caused this case to move forward. There was no question on this case at all because the sheriff's deputy that a detective would have put this thing together. I mean, he went into an immense amount of detail, so much detail that I understand why, Jesse, you're not able on this latest probable cause affidavit to get into the details because your viewers would just be shocked. But from a legal point of view, that level of detail is important, right? for credibility, I imagine. Oh, I think, yeah, I think this, it makes me as a defense lawyer look at that and think, wow, if they have all of that detail, what else do they have?

Because there's no way they can put everything in there, and they already have so much. And, you know, now to argue it on the other side, you could say it's too much. It's unnecessarily too much. And it gets out there in the public domain because it is a public record. and then it kind of, you know, screws up the jury pool potentially, and you didn't really need that much. You know, we defense lawyers, we get upset whether there's not enough, you know, not enough detail or way too much detail. We'll try to argue it either way. But, man, it is just chock full of really fine detail that you just don't typically see.

And a defense attorney arguing whatever point is available. What on earth are you talking about, Andrew? Of course. Now, so here's the truth. Yeah, we're not going to be getting into it. But it is important to know what the alleged victims had to say about Fortenbury, what they say happened in her home between essentially January 22 and November 2024. So according to the May 19th affidavit, a man contacted the sheriff's office via email.

Now, that man, who we're not going to be identifying, shares at least one son with Brittany Fortinberry, who, by the way, since married a man named Nicholas Fortinbury, he too apparently plays a interesting role in all. all this. Well, he said that the son they share had disclosed to his stepmother that Fortenberry had assaulted him at her home. So the detective had the child speak with a forensic interviewer, Anna, who specializes in talking with children who may have been the victims of sexual abuse. It is a very particular skill set. It is such a commendable job, such an important job, difficult job. But the affidavit reads, quote, the child tells Anna

that his mom was in jail for doing really bad things. He told him. tells Anna that he had already spoken with the detective about some things, but he didn't share everything with him because he was scared. He tells Anna that his dad wanted him to talk with the detective again because his mom had sex with him. I would advise that he spelled sex out for Anna. He said he didn't know it was bad or anything because he was seven years old and going into the second grade. So yeah, you heard that right, seven years old, going to the second grade, according to that boy, Fortenbury, his mom, got into the shower while he was in it and assaulted him. He told the interviewer that the abuse continued outside of the shower as well

and that afterward his mom made him pizza rolls and told him to keep what happened a secret. According to the affidavit, he said the incidents he discussed were the only time anything like that happened. He then said Brittany told him she was going to do it again when he was 13. Andrew, I don't even know how to react to that. I mean, do you want to talk about the age? Do you want to talk about that account? Do you want to talk about how that's so disturbing? I don't know how somebody would even make that up.

How do you even defend against it? This is a different level. This is a different level. Yeah, and I think one of the strengths of that probable cause affidavit that gives credibility to this child is the consistent. of what that child, the son said to police, when you juxtapose it against what some of the other alleged victims in the other cases said, there was very similar, very graphic, very similar, very unique things that occurred between the son and the mother, according to the

son. And when I read that, this very specific, one very specific thing that the son said, that was consistent with what the other accusers said on completely different days and of completely different ages, I said that that's going to be a real problem for the defense lawyer. I don't know, you know, and then that could get around 404B, which is the rule of evidence that does not allow prior bad acts to come in unless there's a modus operandi or a pattern or, you know, intent. There are some permitted uses under 404B for a prior bad act. And one of those things would be that this very unique thing that the son that the son alleged is similar or exactly the same actually as some of the other accusers alleged. And that probably it will be a very big problem for the defense lawyer on this case that would defeat any attempt to try to separate those accusers into multiple cases.

Yeah, this feels like a nightmare for a defense attorney because at one point, during the interview, Anna had apparently asked the boy if anyone else was home when things happened with Fortinbury, and according to the affidavit, he said yes, people he referred to as Grammy, Gigi, Mimi. As the interview progressed, the boy revealed other shocking details that seemingly corroborated stories from other alleged victims who've come forward against Brittany Fortinberry. The affidavit reads, he talks about Britney and Nick grooming mushrooms in a room with a pink light. I would advise that Nick is Nicholas Fortinberry, his stepfather. And prior alleged victims told police they had been given psychedelic mushrooms before they

participated in group sex. Quote, he talks about the teenagers that would come by and when asked who they were, he said, too many. And then the boy lists several names that are actually redacted. Quote, he said that Brittany and Mr. Nick would be at the home when the teenagers were there. And according to the child, Nick didn't know what happened between him and Fortenberry. So, Andrew, when you hear that, right, not only is this just incredibly disturbing an account. And by the way, you would have to put him on the stand for this to come out of trial, what, you know, such a young boy?

Well, you know, in Indiana, there is actually a child hearsay statute that's really, it's very confusing. And there's not a lot of prosecutors that even know about it in my experience. And what that says is there are exceptions to a right of confrontation, your sixth amendment right to confrontation with children. There is a way to go about not having your right to confrontation in front of a jury. And so if the state of Indiana, if the prosecutor knows about that, that really unused statute, they can try to avoid having any of these kids actually go in and tell. testify. You have to go through a lot of rigmarole to make that happen. You have to get a psychologist or a psychiatrist to say that it's going to be so traumatizing to testify in front of a jury that you have to do it outside the presence of a jury. And then you then you can have

it on video. It's very, very rare that I've only, in my experience, and I've had a lot of these cases in trial work over the years, I've only seen it accomplished one time. But the prosecutor it would be wise to look into that statute if they don't know about it. I know it sounds crazy that a prosecutor wouldn't know about it, but in my experience is they just don't. Well, but by the way, aside from that, if he's corroborating the accounts of the other alleged victims here, you got to combine the cases. I mean, he's a key witness, right?

So he talks about people coming forward and being there. So now you've got to combine them. Yeah, I think that also, that's a really great point, Jesse. I think that's going to be a real. hindrance for the for the defense and trying to separate these charges out you know there's just too much glue out there between all these people but there's glue in terms of consistency of unique sex acts that were allegedly performed there's glue in terms of a consistent grouping of kids that were there together or if they weren't there together at one point in time

they might have been there at a different point in time there's some crossover where these kids where one group of kids might be there on one day and pass another group of kids. If you read the PCA, it seems that way. I think it's going to be very, very difficult to avoid whatever there. What are there? How many counts are there now? I think there's like 40. I think that's what we count 40 charges.

And what he's describing is so detailed. I mean, even talked about these violent incidents that happened in the home. There were some sort of physical altercation where he says he saw Brittany choke Nick. and the child claimed that, quote, Mr. Nick threatened to break Britney's grandma's other hip. It's like very detailed accounts here. And by the way, I should let it be known that any and all children who've been mentioned in these court documents, they have had their names redacted. But based on the context that's provided in this affidavit, it seems there were other children living in the home.

But their ages and exact relationships with Fortenberry and her husband, whether they're, so whether they're children, stepchildren, not entirely known, we can't confirm. But I will say this. At least two other children were interviewed by this special forensic interviewer, and they had very different things to say. So one of the children said that when he was 12 years old, Fortenberry would have sex with other men and boys while in the same room as him. According to the most recent affidavit, he said there was an incident where he and a friend were in her bedroom. He said Brittany had her boyfriend Alex over. He said he and the other child were trying to watch a movie and could hear them, quote, doing stuff. So there's apparently someone named Alex that the child identified as Fortenberry's boyfriend.

That's something new that we hadn't really heard before. And the child said that Fortinberry spent a lot of time smoking marijuana in the garage of the home, claimed that she left sex toys all over the home that anyone could come across at any time. You know, Andrew, taking these allegations as true. Is this behavior you seen before or is this an outlier? You know, you talk about normalizing, whether it's to normalize certain behaviors or somebody doesn't realize that what they're doing is wrong or they're trying to normalize it for people around. Again, just taking the allegations as true. Is this something you've seen before?

No way. I mean, I've never, I've seen some very bizarre things in the age of the easy access to pornography online. When I started over 30 years ago, there was never anything like this. I mean, a child molest case was pretty rare back then, but taking video of kids, kids being involved in sex acts like this. That was just never, ever happening. And then with pornography, I've just seen it's a real problem in society. I really think so. And so I've never seen anything like this. This is a unique set of facts.

I hope it is unique at least. I hope that this type of allegation is not happening anywhere else. I mean, we do see kind of a, from time to time, you'll see these teachers because she was a teacher. I mean, that's something, the very first charge that kind of the, the pebble that started the ripple effect here was, Brittany allegedly was, as I think you talked about earlier, was coming on to students at the high school. And then they kind of turned her in. And then that's what started the investigation. And we're seeing these women that are predatory, at least accused as predators of children in high schools and maybe junior high.

So that's something also that we just never would see before. And so, yeah, I've never seen anything like this. By the way, the affidavit went into more. So the affidavit goes on to say, quote, he talks about a time that Brittany offered him alcohol. He said Fort Mary, quote, walked over to the bar that was down. downstairs, which was basically an island, and just offered him a drink out of the blue. He said that Brittany said, do you want some and described it as a yellow pineapple-looking drink? Boy also claimed that one of the teens who had been at the home returned to his family in some sort of intoxicated state, possibly drunk or high, but it seems that the boy's mother was going to report it to the police.

Quote, he said it was late at night when the lady called Brittany saying that she had called the cops on her. He said Brittany was sitting in the garage, sent him to get plastic bags, and put some jar. in the plastic bags. He said that they put the plastic bags and trash bags, took it to the woods, and covered it with a wood pile. He said, Brittany told him and someone else to do this. He said, when Brittany knew the cops weren't coming, she had them go get the bags. He said it was multiple jars and mushrooms. He talks about how his dad used to make muffins and they were weed muffins that would get you high. He said he thinks his dad was growing the mushrooms. He said, whenever they would go in their supply closet downstairs, you could see the pink UV light,

and they wouldn't care that they went in there. But the boy did divulge that, quote, his dad, so maybe referring to Nicholas Fortenberry, was at work when Fortinbury had him hide everything. A lot to unpack here, Andrew, but again, aside from taking the allegations as true, and you think about what's just a horrifying environment that we're dealing with here, do you think the drugs play a potential role in all this? I mean, in a normal world, that would be in and of itself really bad. You know, kids, parents, or adults giving kids psychedelic mushrooms and feeding them alcohol, that is, you know, that's bad enough.

And then without even mentioning the sex, but then when you do that combination, it's the type of thing that a jury is, this case could be over with after a really effective opening statement. You know, there's not a whole lot that a defense lawyer might be able to do between the drugs and the alcohol and the sex. Well, I want to talk about an interesting defense in a minute because there's something that happened and you had mentioned it in your note to us. So we're going to talk about that. But let me just lay out a little bit more of this story. So the third child who was interviewed by the police was resistant to questioning, denied knowing anything about misconduct that might be going on inside the house. The affidavit reads, quote,

He was not happy about being there. He was upset because he was missing school. He said he has paper for his group of a class project that they needed and wasn't sure if they'd be able to finish it. He said he doesn't really know why he was there and it wasn't his business. He said he knows that Brittany was arrested for raping and molesting kids. He said he wasn't aware of these things going on at the house. He said she had kids over at the house. He said they were street kids.

He said he remembers a few. He said he interacted with them at times while they were over there. He said there were others that came over, maybe 12 or. 13 others and there was a lot. He said he didn't keep track of them all. He said he didn't know about other people having sex over there, wasn't aware of drug use going on, and didn't learn about it until after the fact. So you put that to the side. Fortenberry now faces 41 felony charges. I said 40. 41 felony charges, everything from sexual intercourse with children, child molestation, dissemination of material that's harmful to minors, incest, and court documents,

they gave us a better idea of the alleged victims that are directly involved in Fortenberry's court case. According to information gathered by police, victim one is a 15-year-old boy. Three of the counts of sexual intercourse with a child under the age of 16 are connected to victim one. Fortinberry also allegedly supplied him with mushrooms, sent him explicit images, videos. Victim two was a 14-year-old boy. Five of the sexual intercourse with a child charges are connected to victim two. He was also allegedly given drugs, received explicit messages from, Fortenberry. And we know from charging documents that victim three allegedly received explicit

images or videos, and victim four was reportedly given mushrooms on at least three different occasions. Six more counts of sexual intercourse with the child under the age of 16 are allegedly in connection to victim five, another 14-year-old boy. He was also allegedly given mushrooms and sent inappropriate messages, so you're kind of seeing a pattern here that prosecutors will be working with or an alleged pattern. Victim six is another teen. who police say Fortenberry sent graphic messages to, victim seven, is Fortenberry's now nine-year-old son. So she faces eight counts in connection with those alleged sex crimes, including an incest charge. According to prosecutors, the defendant, quote, did engage in sexual intercourse or other sexual conduct with another person to wit victim number seven,

knowing that said other person is related to the defendant biologically as a child and the other person was less than six. 16 years of age. Andrew, you can see once again what prosecutors are doing here in terms of establishing a devastating, devastating pattern. I mean, if this goes to trial, because there's also apparently a victim 8 who's not specifically mentioned in the charging documents, but prosecutors did file a request for an updated, no contact order to add victim 7 and 8. But if you're looking at this, I mean, is she looking at the rest of her life in prison? If she takes this to trial and is convicted. I mean, you could see how prosecutors might be having a very, very, very, very strong case. It would be over for her. There's no way with, especially with the publicity. You know,

I know who the judge is. She's a great judge. And but when when there's this much publicity and I'm just guessing as a human being, it puts a lot of pressure on the judge to make sure that that she follows the law first and foremost, but man, if you give some type of light sentence or if you're that's like, well, this woman had some serious psychological problems and so we're going to mitigate her sentence. No, that just doesn't seem likely to happen at all. If she is found guilty, she's going to prison for the rest of her life, I would presume. All those charges can stack on top of one another. I mean, this is a case where it wouldn't be surprised. But mentioning the defense, so we told you earlier this month that Fortenberry's attorney,

Stephen Gray had filed a former attorney, had filed a notice with Morgan County Superior Court that he wants to hire several mental health professionals to give his client a psychiatric evaluation. And according to reporting from TMZ, there was an effort to see if she suffered from some sort of mental disease or defect which prevented her from appreciating the wrongfulness of the conduct at the time of the offense. So we're talking about insanity, right? The judge signed off on that order. But Andrew, you have an update about that and some thoughts on this, right?

Yeah, so about sometime around 12 days later after that request was made, basically we'll just generically call it an insanity defense. The state was, the prosecution was put on notice of an insanity defense by her attorney Stephen Gray. And then 12 days later, Stephen Gray is out of the case and Alan Lighty is in the case. And then within a day or two of that, I think it was Alan Lighty, her new defense lawyer said, let's, I'm going to get rid of that insanity. defense, take that off the plate for now at least. And so, and I understand that, you know, when you're a new attorney on a case, you don't want to be, you know, stuck with whatever the prior attorney did if it's possible at least. And, you know, you can always go back and file that

insanity of defense. And Alan, I mean, I can't, I don't know exactly what happened there. I don't know if his client got mad and I'm not crazy. Don't, I don't want that. I never wanted that filed. And that's why if I don't know what happened or it didn't or he looked at and said this doesn't add up I don't think there's something here yeah I mean that could that could be it too I mean there's definitely some statements in that very very detailed probable cause affidavit that would cause a person to say she knew she knew and appreciated what she was doing was wrong the wrongfulness of her act and that's just not going to fly an insanity defense is not going to fly and maybe that's what Alan was working with you know there is some little detail that she was in the air force and she claims to

have had, and I don't even know whether that's true or not, but she claims that there's post traumatic distress syndrome from that. I don't know whether that's something they could try to latch on to, but he's going to be grasping for any type of defense. And maybe the insanity defense will make a return appearance at some point in time. By the way, she's not the only one facing charges. I mentioned Nicholas Fortinberry also faces charges because some of the teen victims claim he knew what his wife was up to and didn't intervene. I mean, There was even an allegation that he might have been engaging in intimidation. His trial is supposed to start in June.

Now, Andrew, you have some thoughts about Nicholas Fortenberry's role in this and what we might be expecting from him, right? Yeah, well, when I went on the internet to kind of gauge what was going on here with related to Nick Fortenberry, I noticed that there's a divorce action pending between Nick and Brittany, and I thought, well, okay, there you go. some charges pending related to this case. I don't know that the state needs him. That's going to be the problem for Nick. I don't know that they need him. But if they did need him, you know, if I were Nick's lawyer, I'd be knocking on the door of Steve Sondaga and Michelle Armstrong, the prosecutors on this case and saying, hey, my guy's willing to tell you everything that he knows. You know, interesting for Nick, Fortenberry, you know, her husband, it does seem as if he, according to at least

a few of the alleged victims, Nick was going to them and saying, hey, what you're doing is wrong, don't come around here anymore. He was kind of blaming the accusers of what was going on instead of. Allegedly threatened one of them. Yeah, he threatened one of them. And that's what led to the intimidation charge, which is a level six felony in Indiana. So he has pretty light charges, I mean, crazy light charges compared to his wife. Yet they are criminal charges. And he probably will turn on his wife, is what I would expect. It's a possibility. It's a possibility. At this point, prosecutors, they have requested that Brittany Fortner,

Brittany Fortinbury be brought to court for a hearing on new updated charges, but her court docket indicates that the defense may have waived that hearing. So her trial is set to start sometime in August. Why would they have waived that? Well, I read the pleading of her, Brittany's current lawyer, Alan Lighty's, objection to having an initial hearing and a bond hearing, he wanted to waive that because of pretrial publicity. It's just, it's all over the place here. Like you said, your national television, here we are in Indiana. You can imagine what type of publicity it's getting out here.

Oh, yeah. And every time there's a hearing, there's publicity. So let's wave it. Let's not, let's not have the jury pool any more tainted than it already is. Andrew Baldwin, love having you on. I'm sorry this is the case that we have to talk about. It is quite disturbing, to say the least, but I always, always appreciate your legal insight into this. Thank you so much for taking your time. Take care, Jesse.

And that's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us. And as always, please subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcast, Spotify, wherever you should get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. You can binge all episodes of this long crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.