JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (Court TV) — A man convicted of plotting and funding the murder-for-hire of his wife’s ex-husband is asking for a new trial, claiming that prosecutors made improper arguments to the jury and altered a key piece of evidence in the case.
Mario Fernandez Saldana appears in court on Aug. 25, 2026. (Court TV)
Mario Fernandez Saldana, 38, was found guilty on charges of first-degree murder and solicitation to commit a capital felony in the death of Microsoft executive Jared Bridegan. Bridegan, who was previously married to Fernandez’s wife, Shanna Gardner, was shot and killed after dropping off the two children he shared with his ex.
Prosecutors convinced the jury that Fernandez hired a tenant on his rental property, Henry Tenon, to murder Bridegan. Fernandez’s defense had maintained at trial that all the government’s evidence was circumstantial, requiring jurors to draw unsupported inferences. “Therefore, the State repeatedly confronted an unavoidable pattern: critical facts necessary to prove its theory were not established by admitted evidence,” Fernandez’s appellate attorney, Shannon Day, wrote in the motion for a new trial. “Rather than permit those evidentiary gaps to remain where the evidence left them, the State repeatedly filled them in during closing argument.”…