Casey Anthony to serve probation for old check fraud case

Casey Anthony, the young Florida woman who was acquitted of murdering her daughter Caylee in a widely-watched trial last month, might have to return to Orlando in a case related to a previous check fraud conviction.

Associated Press reported that Anthony (whose whereabouts since she was freed from prison have been a mystery) might have to turn herself in to a probation officer within three days.

Circuit Judge Stan Strickland, who sentenced Anthony for check fraud last year, signed a "corrected" version of the probation order under which she was required to begin a one-year term after her release from jail, not while she was detained awaiting her murder trial.

Strickland put in the phrases "the defendant is to report to probation upon release" for each of the seven counts of check-fraud that Anthony pled guilty to last January.

Anthony reportedly used checks that she had stolen from a friend.

Anthony, 25, was released from jail in Orlando last month without any restrictions placed on her freedom after her acquittal on a murder charge connected to the 2008 death of her 2-year-old daughter Caylee.

Her whereabouts have not been publicly disclosed in the weeks since her release.

The probation stems from a separate case. Anthony pleaded guilty in January 2010 to check fraud charges resulting from purchases she made after Caylee's death using the checking account of one of Anthony's best friends.

Anthony was sentenced to the 412 days she had already spent in jail, to be followed by a year of probation.

Jail officials concluded that her probation period was completed in the course of the 18 subsequent months she spent in jail awaiting trial on the murder charge.

But the judge who sentenced Anthony in the check fraud case has clarified his intent, said Leesa Bainbridge, spokeswoman for the clerk's office.

"It was to make it perfectly clear that she was to serve probation upon release," Bainbridge said.

Bainbridge said only Judge Stan Strickland and a deputy clerk were present when Strickland signed documents on Monday related to the probation issue.