Now, Tenon is saying he is not guilty and his case will go to trial.<\/p>\n
Tenon spoke in court Tuesday, making it explicitly clear we wanted a trial and the State Attorney\u2019s Office had no objections to it.<\/p>\n
![\"Henry](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/https:\/\/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com\/cmg\/ZFMYUJ7ASZADNOWKWNT6JGXX5M.png\")
<\/p>\n
Henry Tenon in court, 2\/17\/26 Henry Tenon in court, 2\/17\/26 <\/p>\n
\u201cWhat do you want to do? Do you want to maintain your plea or do you want a trial?\u201d Judge London Kite asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want a trial,\u201d Tenon said. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou got it,\u201d Kite said.<\/p>\n
RELATED: Man who admitted to shooting in local \u2018murder-for-hire\u2019 plot looks to take back guilty plea<\/a><\/p>\n It\u2019s an unexpected twist in the case of Bridegan\u2019s murder.<\/p>\n Bridegan\u2019s ex-wife Shanna Gardner and her estranged husband Mario Fernandez Saldana are accused of plotting his murder.<\/p>\n Tenon had previously admitted the couple hired him to pull the trigger.<\/p>\n In a plea deal he originally agreed to, Tenon would face a minimum of 15 years to life in prison and avoid the death penalty.<\/p>\n But as of Tuesday, that deal is off.<\/p>\n RELATED: Accused gunman in murder-for-hire plot to kill Jared Bridegan wants to withdraw guilty plea<\/a><\/p>\n Kite approved Tenon\u2019s motion to withdraw that plea and go to trial.<\/p>\n \u201cThe state has no objection to the court granting that motion for trial,\u201d Assistant State Attorney Alan Mizrahi said.<\/p>\n In the motion filed last Friday, it explicitly states that Tenon will not testify against his co-defendants while on trial.<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n On Tuesday, Tenon also waived his rights to a speedy trial. Kite wanted to make sure Tenon understood this.<\/p>\n \u201cDid Ms. Schlax (Tenon\u2019s attorney) do anything to you to get you to waive a speedy trial other than explain what it meant?\u201d Kite asked.<\/p>\n \u201cNo,\u201d Tenon replied.<\/p>\n \u201cAre you in agreement with it?\u201d Kite asked.<\/p>\n \u201cYes I am,\u201d Tenon said.<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n Tenon is scheduled to appear for a pre-trial hearing on March 23. His case is separate from Gardner and Fernandez Saldana, who are scheduled to go to trial in August.<\/p>\n Action News Jax\u2019s Madison Foglio reached out to a criminal defense attorney who is not affiliated in this case and asked him if it\u2019s possible that Tenon could now face the death penalty since he no longer has the plea deal with the state. That attorney said the state could bring back the death penalty as an option if they want to.<\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 The man who previously admitted to killing a St. Johns County father in a murder-for-hire…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":159775,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[64331,76599,76597,76600,64332,969,76598,116,118,117,5729,64328,634,644,656,76602,64325,76601,115,64326,64333],"class_list":{"0":"post-159774","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-brigan","9":"tag-duvalt_county_courthouse","10":"tag-henry_tenn","11":"tag-henry_tennant","12":"tag-henry_tennen","13":"tag-jack","14":"tag-jack_masifoglio","15":"tag-jacksonville","16":"tag-jacksonville-headlines","17":"tag-jacksonville-news","18":"tag-jacksonville_beach","19":"tag-jared_brigan","20":"tag-local","21":"tag-madison","22":"tag-madison_foglio","23":"tag-mario","24":"tag-mario_fernandez_saldana","25":"tag-mitch_lack","26":"tag-news","27":"tag-shanna_gardner","28":"tag-tennen"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}