Defense Opening Statement, FL v. Charlie Adelson — Dentist Mastermind Murder Trial

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Good morning. I didn't get to talk to you that much in the next couple of days. My name is Dan Rashpon, and with me is Kate Myers, and we represent Charlie Adelson. Now let me start by saying the obvious. The murder of Professor Markell was a tragedy. The world lost a brilliant legal mind. His family lost a son and a brother. This community lost its sense of security. And lost a good citizen. And his two boys, the nephews of Charlie Adelson, lost a loving father. His senseless murder continues to be felt throughout this community and others. It was inexcusable, despicable, evil. But what I'm going to tell you today is what actually happened. You will see that Charlie Adelson had nothing to do with the murder of Professor Markell. You will see that the state cannot come close to meeting its burden. Because Charlie Adelson is innocent. Now, I don't have to prove innocence. But what I'm telling you, I very rarely say in a courtroom as a defense lawyer, Charlie Adelson is innocent. And we'll get there. But the next thing I'm going to tell you, I also rarely say in a courtroom. And you may be surprised to hear this from a defense lawyer, I have great respect for the prosecutors and law enforcement on this case. I have admiration for their efforts after the murder of Professor Markell, in trying to find out who did it. You will see that they spent countless man hours, cell phone tower dumps, surveillance videos from a boatload of places, buses, cameras on the street, great law enforcement activity, and it paid off. They got the three killers. They convicted them. And the problem is, as you just heard, the state saw no connection between these people and Professor Markell. The problem is, as you just heard, the state saw no connection between these people and Professor Markell. The problem is, as you just heard, the state saw no connection between these people and Professor Markell. So from the very outset, the state suspected the Adelsons, the family. You saw the chart, it wasn't limited to Charlie Adelsons. Unindicted co-conspirators in this case, the state has said it, Wendy Adelsons, Donna Adelsons, Harvey Adelsons. The state knew, as you heard, that Wendy Adelsons and Professor Markell had gone through a brutal divorce. And you're going to see it. But they couldn't find the connection. But then they had their aha moment. As you heard, they determined that at the time of the murder in 2014, Charlie Adelsons was dating Catherine McBannerwall. And they learned that Catherine McBannerwall had had a previous relationship, on again, off again, with Sigfredo Garcia. As you heard, they learned that Sigfredo Garcia and Catherine McBannerwall shared two children together. They had their connection. The problem is, that's where the state began to guess, began to make assumptions. And you will see, we will show it, that those assumptions didn't make sense. Now, I love jigsaw puzzles. I've loved them since I'm young. And the reason why I love them, is because they only work if every piece fits. No matter what you do with the jigsaw puzzle, if a piece doesn't fit, it becomes a mess. You can't hammer it. And you can't ignore it. Because if you ignore it, you have holes in the puzzle. What you're going to see is, with regards to this case, that's exactly what the state tried to do. They heard things, they saw things, but there were problems. They couldn't fit all the pieces together under their theories, their theories that they told you about today. I'm going to show you how those puzzles, those pieces, they didn't fit. They don't fit. And why? Respectfully, the state does not know what happened on July 18, 2014. On that day, two crimes occurred. The first one, the state knows about, and that was the brutal, heinous murder of Professor Markell. The other one, they don't know about. They're about to find out like you. Because that day would forever change Charlie Edelson's life. But before we get there, I like cliffhangers. It's important to give you some background and timeline of the events. Charlie Edelson is 46 years old, single with a young son. He grew up in South Florida in Coral Springs in Broward County. His father was a dentist, a local dentist. It wasn't the Edelson Institute when Charlie was growing up. It was a small dental practice with his dad. Charlie is the middle child of three. He is very close with his parents. As they said, he is very close with his mom. Growing up, the family was middle class. And Charlie was not particularly close with either of his siblings. He grew closer with Wendy as they got older. He went to college at the University of Central Florida, went to dental school in South Florida, Florida, and then periodontic school. When he graduated as a periodontist, he had an idea. Rather than work in his own practice, he figured that he could travel around to dental practices all over South Florida. He would be a traveling periodontist. So what you are going to learn in this case is that Charlie Edelson had practices from the very south of South Florida to as far places as Jupiter. He was in the car sometimes for hours in a day. And he worked a lot. You are going to see that. He was a workaholic. He spent a lot of time in that car. And what did he do when he was in the car to pass the time? He spoke a lot on the phone. He would talk to whoever would listen to him. And you're going to see in this case, this is one thing we won't deny, Charlie Edelson likes to talk. And he likes to repeat himself. And who would he speak with the most? He'd speak with his girlfriend. He'd speak with his mom. He'd speak with his friends. Now, Wendy Edelson, who's a state witness, followed a different path. She went to a prestigious university in Boston. She then went to school in England on a Truman Fellowship, and later went to law school. She got scholarships for law school and college. Soon after starting law school, she met Dan Markell, and they fell in love. They got married. They ultimately moved to Tallahassee, where they both worked for FSU, Professor Markell as a law professor of the law school. Charlie Edelson didn't have much to do with either Professor Markell or Wendy during their marriage or before their marriage. He would talk to his sister periodically, maybe once every two or three weeks. They lived in Tallahassee for years. Charlie Edelson visited him in Tallahassee two, maybe three times. Charlie loved his sister. He sought advice from her, as she did with him every once in a while. But they weren't super close. They were brother-sister. The truth is that Charlie Edelson was a little self-centered. He was building his career. See, that traveling periodontist, in the beginning, it wasn't that successful. But by the time of this case, in the 2013-2014 time period, you're going to see that Charlie Edelson was making a lot of money. His practice was booming. He was working six, sometimes seven days a week. You'll see it on the wires. You'll see it in text messages. He would start his day early in the morning, and most days he wouldn't get home until 8, 9, 10 at night. At the time when this murder occurred, he was not married. He had no kids. He had a lot of money. And he was living a very good life. Now, in 2012, Wendy Edelson, on a trip down to South Florida, confides in her brother that she was having problems in her marriage. She told Charlie that she and Professor Markell had been going through marriage counseling. She asked him what he thought. He said, look, I want you to be happy, but you have to do what's best for you. I'm here to listen. Charlie had no involvement whatsoever in Wendy's decision to divorce Professor Markell. You'll hear that. And in September of 2012, Wendy filed for divorce. And you're going to hear about how she filed for the divorce. And you're going to learn that Charlie had no involvement in her leaving the house. It had nothing to do with him. But we've got to talk about TVs. And you're going to hear a lot about TVs in this case. Excuse me. See, Charlie has a really bad history of telling bad jokes. So, when Wendy left the house, his mom told him that she didn't have a TV. He asked her, he said, what can I do to help Wendy? She's moved to a new place. She's left most of the stuff behind. What can I do to help? And his mom said, she didn't have a TV. He said, okay, when you go to Tallahassee, go to Best Buy. Buy a TV for Wendy, and I'll pay you for it. And so, Wendy got the TV. And she called Charlie. This is back in 2012. The murders in 2014. And she thanked him for the TV. And he didn't say he looked into hiring a hitman. He joked. A bad joke. And he said, it was cheaper than hiring a hitman. Now, not only was it a bad joke, but you're going to hear in this trial, Charlie repeated the joke. He repeated it a lot. To a lot of people. You're going to hear that he repeated it as late as March of 2014. So, the man that they think hired a hitman is joking to others about hiring a hitman. Puzzle pieces. And you're going to learn why his repeating of that joke is going to be so important. I'm going to tell you in a little bit. I'm going to tell you in a little bit. Keep in the back of your mind. But let's first go back to the divorce. The divorce was bitter. It was emotional. Wendy Adelson and Professor Markell, they'd have good times. But when things were bad, they would fight about everything. And in January 2013, Wendy Adelson filed a motion to relocate to South Florida with her two boys. That motion was opposed by Professor Markell. Now, what you're going to learn in this trial is that Wendy Adelson never thought that motion would be granted. Her lawyer told her that motion would never be granted. But she said, let's give it a shot. Charlie had very little to do with the motion. He knew she was filing it. He knew she didn't have much chance of getting it. And the motion was denied. When it was denied, it didn't change Charlie Adelson's life one bit. But unlike Charlie, his mom and dad were upset. They were upset because their daughter had a job opportunity in South Florida. She had no family support in Tallahassee. And they wanted her home. And you will see that Donna and Harvey Adelson are very involved in their children's lives. We won't run away from that. You will see that Donna Adelson and Harvey came up with a lot of crazy ideas. I mean crazy ideas. You're going to see them. You've heard about some of them. When they show you those crazy ideas, take a look if any of them includes murder. Doesn't. Take a look at any of those crazy ideas. Include anything illegal. It doesn't. Take a look at if they're actually then go to lawyers to make sure that their ideas are legal. Murderers. You heard it. Unindicted co-conspirators going to lawyers to make sure that what they're offering is allowed. You're going to see that. But the ideas were crazy. You're going to read the emails. A lot of emotion. A mother-in-law. A grandmother. With a lot of emotion. And you're going to see that Wendy Adelson, she rejected them. She rejected the ideas. They were never presented to Dan Markell. And then you're going to see that there was another idea. They have mentioned it in their opening. But they don't understand the importance of it. See, at one point in time, Donna Adelson, Harvey Adelson, came with an idea to pay Professor Markell one million dollars to allow their daughter to relocate. And they went to Charlie, who frankly, by this point in time, had more money than them. And they said, will you lend your sister a third of a million dollars? She'll pay you back or will pay you back. And he said, sure. And you're going to see that they presented this idea to Wendy Adelson. And the idea wasn't to take the boys out of Professor Markell's life. The idea was that with a million dollars, if Professor Markell agreed, he could live in South Florida and commute back and forth to Tallahassee. He could work out his schedule. He didn't teach every day of the week. He could work out his schedule so that he could still teach at the university and go back and forth. You're going to see that Wendy Adelson never made that offer. But it's very important. Like the joke, I want you to put it in the back of your mind for now. Let's fast forward to October 2013. October 2013, Charlie started dating Catherine Magbanewa. We'll call her Katie. She was beautiful. She was smart. Like Charlie, she graduated from UCF. She was hardworking. He met her in one of the dental practices. At first, the relationship was casual. They wanted it that way. Charlie particularly liked it and liked Katie because she had two children. He worked a lot. His priority was his job. And Katie didn't bother him a lot. He only saw her like once, maybe twice a week. That's what he liked. That's what he liked. And she was smart. She was fun. And he treated her very well. And that was very different, you'll learn, from how she was treated previously. Now, you'll hear that he spent a lot of time with Katie over the months that they dated. And remember how I told you, Charlie talks a lot and repeats himself a lot? Well, when they were together, he did just that. He talked about his day. He talked about what was going on in the world. He talked about his family, which, by the way, was a constant topic every single day. Because when Charlie's driving in the car, every morning, for an hour to work and an hour home, sometimes longer, he talked to his mom on the phone. And when he talked to his mom on the phone, what would be a topic of heavy conversation quite frequently? Wendy's divorce. All the problems in the divorce. They told you that. They told you that in opening. And what would Charlie do? He would tell these things to his girlfriend. And what were some of the things he told her? Well, he told her about the million-dollar offer. He told her that he could pay it in cash. She said, that's a lot of money. He said, no, I have it in cash. And I'm going to get it back. He told her several times the joke. Over time, you're going to see through text messages that Katie wanted a deeper relationship. and you'll see that Charlie didn't want that. You'll also learn, and the timeline is important, they start dating in October of 13. You're going to see that over time, it takes a couple months, Charlie starts to learn a little bit more about Katie's ex, Siegfriedo Garcia. And what you're going to learn is that Charlie Adelson never meets Siegfriedo Garcia officially, but by all accounts, he was not a good guy. Violent. Long criminal history. Siegfriedo Garcia and Katie had been high school boyfriend, girlfriend. And Katie was the love of Siegfriedo's life. He lived for her. And you're going to see that Siegfriedo Garcia hated Charlie Adelson. Puzzle pieces. So let me repeat it. You saw their chart. The shooter of Professor Markell, the man who murdered him, hated Charlie Adelson. According to them, he's co-conspirator. And you're going to hear, not from our witnesses, from their own witnesses, that he wanted to kill Charlie Adelson. You're going to hear that in March of 2014, just seven or eight weeks before that first attempt of murder that they talk about, he tried to kill him. puzzle pieces. You're also going to hear about a phone call on July 1, 2014. You're going to actually hear that that July 1, 2014 call is how they found these guys. It's actually the craziest fact in this entire case and there's a lot of crazy facts. You're going to hear that on July 1, 2014, Siegfriedo Garcia made a call to the cell phone number of Harvey Adelson. It's the only call that helped investigators connect these folks to the Adelsons in the beginning. It actually broke the case. What they don't know, what you're going to see, it's in text messages. It's discussed on the wires. They don't know it because they don't understand it because they weren't there. It's that on July 1, 2014, just three weeks or so after the first murder attempt, and by the way, just 17 days before the murder. Let me repeat that. The murder happens on July 18, 2014. On July 1, 2014, Siegfriedo Garcia tries to run Charlie off the road. He threatens him. And what you're going to hear is that on July 1, he's so upset that he calls the Adelson Institute. He doesn't realize that Charlie isn't the doctor at the Adelson Institute. He just comes in and out of the place. So he gets their voicemail machine, and you know how dentists are, they say in an emergency, call a cell phone number, they take your call at home on the cell phone number. What he hears, in an emergency, call Dr. Adelson at such and such number. He thinks he's calling Charlie Adelson, but he calls Harvey Adelson. And he calls him, and he threatens him. He tells him, if you keep dating Katie, we're going to go mano y mano. I'm going to kill you. 17 days before, according to them, he conspired with this man to kill Professor Markell. Puzzle pieces. What you're going to learn is that in the spring of 2014, it became apparent to Katie that her dreams of financial security with Charlie were not going to work out. You will learn that Katie heard the hitman joke. You will learn that she heard the million dollar offer, and she got some ideas in her head. The state itself has called Catherine Magbanawa the mastermind. And that's exactly what she was. So now, let's get to July 18th. I kept you waiting long enough. The June attempt didn't happen because Rivera didn't want to kill Dan Markell when his boys were around. See, what you're going to learn is during that June attempt, on June 4th, 5th, Professor Markell had custody of the boys. You're going to learn that Professor Markell and Wendy Adelson shared custody 50-50. But you're going to learn that the state thinks Wendy Adelson was involved with her brother in a murder for hire and she chose for the killers to kill her ex-husband when he had custody of her kids. Puzzle pieces. So you're going to learn that Luis Rivera, who is a bad guy, he had some conscience somewhere and he didn't want to do it in front of the kids. So they came back. By the way, on July 18th, who had custody of the kids when the murder actually happened? Professor Markell. You're going to hear he dropped them off at school. But this family who did this so that their grandchildren could be with them were going to risk for two hired hitmen to go up when he had custody of the kids? Puzzle pieces. July 18th for Charlie starts as a normal day. He works. You're going to see he lives in Fort Lauderdale. Now I don't know how many of you are familiar with South Florida so I'm going to give you a little bit of geography lesson. He lives in Fort Lauderdale. That day he's working in two offices because he'd often work in two offices a day. He'd work in the morning at one place and the afternoon at another. So he's working in two offices. The first office he's working in both of them actually are in Jupiter, Florida. Now if you're familiar with South Florida Fort Lauderdale and Jupiter are not close. With South Florida traffic in the morning he was in the car for at least two hours. Now he came home late that night you're going to hear so traffic was a little bit better but it was probably still an hour to an hour and a half. Jupiter is north of Palm Beach. When I drive up here and I hit Jupiter I know I'm about a third of the way here. That's a good way to look at it. If you live in Fort Lauderdale when you hit Jupiter you're one third done. He's in the car and he's talking on the phone. And you're going to see it. We're going to show you what the phone calls are about. He talks to his sister. Talks to his mom. Talks to his girlfriend. We'll talk to you about it. There are phone calls. You're going to see it. There are a lot of phone calls. And there are a lot of phone calls to his girlfriend. And there are a lot of phone calls to his mom. We're not going to deny that. And he works in these two offices and at around six o'clock you'll see a text message that he's about to start a very long surgery. A big procedure. By the way, the text messages throughout the day are normal. Just after 7pm he gets a call from his mom and he's told that Professor Markell has been shot. And he's shocked. He's upset. His first reaction is Wendy and the boys okay. He's supposed to have dinner originally with a friend that night. But earlier in the day that changes and he's supposed to have dinner with Katie. And you're going to hear that Katie and him had gotten in a fight a couple days earlier about dinners. You'll hear it. And what you'll learn is after he finds out what happened he tells Katie he doesn't want to go to dinner. He leaves the office at around eight o'clock in Jupiter. And you'll learn that Katie tells him she'll come to his house that night. to comfort him. He shook up. Now let me be clear. You're going to hear he wasn't close with Professor Markell. They weren't friends. They had nothing in common. But he shook up because someone he knew the father of his nephews had been shot. when Katie arrived that night and you're going to learn more details of how she gets there what she has to do to get there it's not planned. You're going to see that. The state's going to put on that evidence. You're going to learn that she's scrambling to get a babysitter. You're going to learn by the way that Charlie had seen her for lunch the day before. So if it's a murder for hire why didn't she get the money then? Puzzle pieces. You're going to learn that she gets there that night sometime after 11 and when she gets there she is frantic. She's upset. and he's scared because he's never seen her this way. And she sits him down and she tells him something terrible has happened. She says that a friend of hers had shot Professor Markell. she tells him over and over that she had nothing to do with it. But these people she was talking too much and her friend and these people learn about the problems that his family was having with Professor Markell. they learned about the million dollar offer. And they got it in their minds to do this. As you can imagine Charlie is his life has just forever been altered. He asked who are these people she won't tell him. It's not safe for you to know. Screaming at her she won't tell him. Charlie had a guess. You will hear in detail what happened that night. You will learn that Charlie Adelson was told if he didn't pay within the next 48 hours he or one of his family members would be next. You will learn that Katie repeatedly shared that she had nothing to do with it and acted distraught. You will hear how she said that she would help him. You will learn about the initial payment. It wasn't $100,000. It was more than $100,000. He took out everything he had in his safe. You're going to learn about that. The state doesn't know it. It was more money. But you're going to learn he didn't have a third of a million dollars. so he had to pay every month. They don't know about that either. Payments every month. Does that sound like a murder for hire or does that sound like extortion? you're going to hear about these gifts and you're going to learn that the gifts were just that. They were gifts. Because as time went on, he became more and more certain that Katie was not involved. He became more and more certain that she was helping him. And he wanted to keep her happy too because he needed her. He needed her help. And you will hear that the payments changed a couple months after the night of the extortion. Two crimes. You'll hear that the payments changed. And that Katie was put on the books of the Adelson Institute. Paper Trail. They created a paper trail. Puzzles don't fit. Pieces of the puzzle don't fit. And you'll hear that in order to put her on the books, despite Katie telling him the night of July 18, you can never talk about this with anyone. You can never talk on the phone about this. You can never talk about it in public. You can never talk about it anywhere because if they find out they will kill you and your family. If they think the police are coming to you to talk to you, they will kill you. Look at what they did to Professor Markell. But you will hear that he told someone. He had to. He told his mom. You'll learn that she was the bookkeeper for the dental institute. You'll learn why he had to tell her. You'll learn about those checks. They've never been able to understand why are they so sequential? Why are they back and forth? They talk about the bump in 2016. What I like to call is the second extortion. What they don't realize is that their undercover operation was an extortion on an extortion. They don't know it. It's not their fault. And we're going to go through the wires with you. We're going to go through Dolce Vita with you. And we're going to show you how they actually prove his innocence. We're going to show you how they are talking carefully. They're talking to him. He's talking about extortion. They're happy if this bump is the police because if it's the police, none of them are going to get killed. If it's a bad guy, they're in danger. If you do a murder with someone, the last person in the world you want this bump to be is the police. Because it means they're on to you. puzzle pieces. Not from the first layer, she says, but from the second layer. I got goosebumps when she said it. It's one of my favorite lines in the recording. not from the first layer, the first extortion, but from the second layer. 20 months later is the bump. That's the second layer to Charlie Edelson at that point in time. You will also see. And what's going to be weird about this case, ladies and gentlemen, you're going to start to see it today. Much of their case, I agree about. They're going to put witnesses up there. I'm not going to ask them one question. Some of their evidence is exactly the truth. It just doesn't prove a murder. The stapled money, it's his money. You will also see that Sigfredo Garcia was arrested on May 25, 2016. You will see that Luis Rivera was arrested on June 2, 2016. You will see that Catherine Magbanewa was arrested on October 1, 2016. guess who wasn't arrested? Charlie Adelson. He wasn't arrested for six more years. What you're going to see is that they had the exact same evidence in 2016 against Charlie Adelson that they do today. The same wires. They talk about an enhanced Dolce Vita recording. You're going to get both recordings. You determine if you can hear anything better. see the state's case against Charlie Adelson is a case of assumptions. It's a case of guesses. It was not brought until weeks before Katie Magbanewa's trial. You can ask yourself why. ladies and gentlemen I want to thank you for your attention. I want to ask for your patience in this case. A man's life is in your hands. He's innocent. Send him home. Thank you.