Donna Adelson's defense team distances matriarch from Dan Markel murder in opening statements

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Jackie Fulford and I, along with Mr. Zellman, represent Mrs. Adelson, and I don't think you've heard my voice yet. I'm going to try and talk slow, because if I don't, the court reporter's going to scream at me. I just want to start by saying this. Remember, during the course of the proceedings, that the state always gets to go first. But the defense has a right to be heard, too. So please keep an open mind until you hear from us as well. You just sat through an opening statement. The presentation was pretty cool. I'm old-fashioned, so I don't use that kind of stuff. But for an hour, you heard about this killing. And we're going to talk about that in a minute. And you heard an awful lot about why they think Donna Adelson has the motive to kill Danny Markell. And you heard an awful lot about what other people did in this case. But not a single piece of evidence was discussed that shows that Donna Adelson planned this, hired anybody to do this, or intended that this happen. And I just want you to be mindful that when we're at the end of the case, and the judge gives you the instructions, and he gives them. I won't do that. When he gives you the instructions, he's not going to give you an instruction that says the state has to prove motive. He's going to give you elements of each offense. And he's going to say that each element of each offense has to have actual evidence to prove that, not motive, actual evidence that those things happen. We're going to have a long trial. And I know you all are kind of prepared for that, at least in your mind. You know it's going to happen, and it's going to be long, and we're going to have days. And you're going to hear a lot of evidence, and phone calls, and text messages, and e-mails. But I want to ask you to never, ever stop thinking for the two weeks or two and a half weeks that we're here about why it is we are really here. Not just because Donna Adelson is on trial, but because two men killed Danny Markell. Don't forget Danny. He was an amazing professor. He was very well educated. He had two degrees, I think, from Harvard, one of them from law school there. He was a professor. He had students. He was very well respected by his peers, his colleagues. He traveled all over the place to talk at conferences. They wanted him there, for him to come and speak. Very, very intelligent man, and I know, I can't say I know because I never met him. I wish I had. But I know he had to be proud of all that he had achieved. It was, his career was important to him. Him continuing to educate himself so that he could get tenure at the law school as a professor. He worked very hard. He earned a lot. What he did not earn was for somebody to do this to him. You're going to hear that Wendy Adelson, the daughter of my client, was married to Danny. And I'm not trying to be informal when I say that. I respect Mr. Markell, Dr. Markell. But because so many people in the trial are going to refer to him as Danny, I'm going to do that if that's okay. But I don't mean any disrespect by doing that. More important to Danny Markell than anything in the world were his little boys. He had two little children when this happened to him, a three-year-old and a four-year-old. When the divorce first happened, when Wendy moved out, he did not want the divorce. That was in 2012. And they squabbled during the divorce. They did. Each side argued for their side. The other side argued for their side. That's what happens to divorce. Divorce is not fun. Divorce is not usually friendly. Some of us have had friendly divorces, but not everybody does. And a lot of things were said. But moving forward to 2014 is where we're going to concentrate on, because that's when Danny was killed. And in 2014, with these little boys that he had, the divorce had been over for a year. Relocation, the opportunity, even discussion about it, ended. On July 31st, when the final judgment was entered, relocation was over. The state told you that. The court denied it with prejudice. She could never raise it again. Nobody was fighting anymore about where these little boys would be. Danny advocated for not only himself in the divorce, he advocated for his children. They are an important part of his life. He wanted as much time as he could get with them. They ended up splitting the time equally between Wendy and Danny. Their schedules changed a little bit on how they worked that out, but it was 50%. This bug is driving me crazy, too. What in the world is that? Sorry. He continuously, from the time Wendy moved out to the time that he was killed, spent as much time as he could get with his children. He loved being with them. If it wasn't his time to have the children, he would go to their little preschool and spend time with them there. He wanted to talk to them on the phone as much as he could. You guys are way younger than me, so maybe you don't even know about this, but I guess there was a thing called Skype. I don't even know if it still exists, but I guess it's like FaceTiming, but doing it on your computer. That's how he wanted to talk to his kids, so that he could see them when he wasn't with them while he spoke to them. Now, at three and four, it's kind of hard to wrangle them to sit down in front of a screen, so Danny came up with a really good idea. When he Skyped the children, it would be, most of the time, after the kids had had their dinner and had their baths, where they're kind of calmed down. They're not in their little running-around state, and he would read bedtime stories to them. He didn't have his little kids. He still wanted to know that when the children went to bed, they didn't forget about Daddy, and he made sure that didn't happen. But these kids are not deprived of their father. Their father was brutally taken from them, not just when they were three or four or five or six or seven or eight, but up into their teens. They lost the opportunity, because someone took it from them, to grow up with a father, to have his involvement and influence in their lives, to talk about what he did as a kid and share his experiences. All of that was stolen from him. That's very important. This Skyping that he did with his kids, Mrs. Adelson, when she had the little boys, actually arranged so she could do that with him. And she would keep the kids in front of the screen while he talked to his children. You've heard a lot about how she hated him. She said some ugly things during the divorce. Foul things, actually. But you're going to learn through the evidence why that was occurring and how she was actually interacting with Danny. They're two very different things. I want to talk to you now about my client, Donna Adelson. She is a normal person, just like all of us. At the time that this happened, she was 64 years old, married to her husband, Dr. Adelson, a dentist. Now they've been married 54 years. It was somewhere in the 40-year range when this happened 11 years ago. And she got up in the morning and went to work, not at her and Harley's business, like you were just told. She went to the business owned by her son. Every morning, they got up and they went to work. She did the books. She kept the books. She greeted patients. She got charts out at 730 every morning. She was there and organized and had everybody ready to go because they had a little staff meeting so everybody could know what to expect, what patients they were going to see, what they were going to take care of. She was there working, sometimes late into the evening, just like all of us. People who know Donna will tell you that she is not the person that the state is portraying her to be. She's kind, caring, loving. She cares more about people than she does about herself. Now, what happened on July the 18th of 2014? You've heard the state describe it, but I want to talk about it for a minute. The state is going to be able to prove to you some of the things they were talking about. [00:10:55] Speaker ?: The state is going to be able to tell you some of the things they were talking about. The state is going to be able to tell you some of the things they were talking about. [00:11:05] Speaker 2: The state is going to be able to tell you some of the things they were talking about. The state is going to be able to tell you some of the things they were talking about. [00:11:07] Speaker 1: The state is going to be able to tell you some of the things they were talking about. [00:11:08] Speaker 2: The state is going to be able to tell you some of the things they were talking about. The state is going to be able to tell you some of the things they were talking about. The state is going to be able to tell you some of the things they were talking about. The state is going to be able to tell you some of the things they were talking about. [00:11:16] Speaker 1: The state told you that he got up every day just like he normally did on July the 18th of 2014. And I just want to say this also, throughout the trial you may hear me say that he was murdered on that day. Somehow he survived for another 11 hours. But in my opinion, all the evidence is going to show that what killed him took place on the 18th. And he was just able to survive long enough into the next day. So on that date, July 18th of 2014, these two men, Secreto Garcia and Luis Rivera, followed Danny all over town. Started at his house, followed him to the school where the little children were going to school, At the preschool where he dropped them off. Watched him drop those kids off, followed him to the gym, waited outside the gym for him, Followed him to his house, pulled up in the driveway. Mr. Markell is talking on the telephone to someone and he notices someone's coming into his driveway. And while he's talking on the phone and says something about needing to see who this is, He turns and looks in the direction. And this man, Secreto Garcia, is holding a revolver. And he points it at him, and you may hear testimony that there's some evidence that maybe he tried to, you know, what you do in defense when somebody's going to hit you or whatever. You put your hands up. He saw this man pointing a gun similar to this at him. And in that instant, I cannot fathom how terrified he must have been when this man shot him. Not one time, but twice. One of the shots is almost right between the eyes. He was brutally murdered by this man. This man, Luis Rivera, who you've heard them mention in the state's opening, traveled with this car. This is an actual picture of the car, and the state's going to show it to you. This is the Prius that they were traveling in. This is a surveillance photo that the investigators were able to find to know that it was a Prius that they were looking for. This man supplied the gun and drove the car following Danny. Drove it up into the driveway less than three feet away from Mr. Markell, whose engine is still running. And he's on the phone, and he waits while this man kills him. He hears the shots. This guy, Mr. Garcia, runs back to the car where Mr. Rivera is in the driver's seat. And he's the getaway driver. Supplies the gun, knows what they're going there to do, kill him, and drive off. The state can prove that about Sigfredo Garcia and Luis Rivera. But they're not on trial here, right? You heard, they've already been on trial. Then, you're going to hear, as the state said, that they can prove, everybody can see okay? They can prove that Katie McBanawha, her name's Catherine, some people call her Katie. They can prove that she's the one who set it up. This is the father of Katie's children. This is his buddy that was recruited to go along on this trip to kill Danny. They can prove that she arranged these guys to do it, and that she's the one who paid them the money. The money that was in stacks, stapled, $100 bills, all $100 bills. There may have been something other than $100 bills, but each stack was $1,000, stapled together. And you're going to hear testimony that that's exactly what he did with his money. He kept it and saved it for a long time. And you're probably going to hear testimony that this happens on July 18th. And on July the 19th, Mr. Adelson, Charlie Adelson, which is her son, gave approximately between $130,000 and $138,000 and $138,000 that he had in his safe that he collected and stapled together. His money went to her, not Ms. Adelson. And they can prove, and how, that he paid her to get them to kill Danny Markell. That's what they can prove. And they've done it one, two, three, four times. This case is really a lot about theory and motive and not evidence. The state has a theory and for the past nine to 11 years, in fairness, probably nine years, they have told the whole world that Mrs. Adelson was the reason that this happened. Mrs. Adelson was the reason that this happened. They've told this story and it's outrageous. It gets people's attention. It's made a lot of money for the media, interviews, specials. Some people in jury selection said they had watched these specials. Lawyers on there, investigators on there. They made a lot of money for the media and it got big attention because this is outrageous, what happened. It is truly outrageous. But what's more outrageous is, without any evidence, only motive and theory, they put her at the top of this pyramid. She's the matriarch. She's the matriarch mastermind behind Danny being killed and they don't have evidence of that. That's what's outrageous. It's outrageous that he got killed but it's also outrageous that we're sitting here with a jury and you're going to hear a lot of theory, a lot of motive and a lot of what they believe the evidence means. They don't get to decide that. The evidence is what the evidence is and I ask you to patiently sit here and really pay attention to all of the evidence that you hear. Every witness that they put on. Every piece of evidence that they present to you. All of it. All of it. Don't. For one second. I'm not asking you to ignore any of that. Please listen to all of it closely. Look for what they actually have as evidence that Mrs. Adelson planned. She planned. She planned. Danny Markell's murder. That she engaged these men to kill him. And that she gave the money to her son to give to Katie to pay them. You won't find evidence of that. The evidence about the $3,000 a month. I have that here on this board. Charlie Adelson gave $2,000 a month and he instructed his mother, for reasons you're going to learn to learn in the trial, out of his business account, to put her on payroll. She worked for him and she paid that money. It's this man's money, not Donna Adelson. At the end of listening to all of the evidence, we're going to have an opportunity to make closing arguments, and the judge is then going to give you, well, he's going to give it before. He's going to give you all of the instructions on what it is that you have to decide. Did the state charge and then prove that Mrs. Adelson committed a conspiracy? Not one of the elements, all of the elements, proven by evidence, not theory, not motive. For each count, then solicitation, all the elements. So while you're listening to the evidence, you don't know what those elements are, but think about what each thing it is that the state has alleged. She planned it. She got people to do it. She intended that he died, that this woman wanted to take away the father of her grandchildren for the rest of their life because of relocation that happened a year ago and was done and over. And at the end of the case, because there's not going to be evidence that she did this. Keep an open mind. Listen to all of it. We're going to ask you to find her not guilty of every single count. single count. [00:21:24] Speaker 2: Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Fulford. Ms. Zellman, if you could take down the easels at this time. Is the state prepared to call its first witness? Yes, you're on. [00:21:37] Speaker ?: The state calls James Diger. [00:21:39] Speaker 1: Can I reposition the lectern, Judge? in the lectern, Judge? [00:22:33] Speaker 2: God, I hope you enjoyed it.