The Trial Of Donna Adelson: Full Prosecution Opening Statements

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Everyone can be seated. Good morning, members of the jury. Thank you. Everyone recalled. Good job. Jury number one, how did I do on the snacks? [00:00:25] Speaker 2: For you. [00:00:28] Speaker 1: You're welcome. Before we get started this morning, I'm going to give you some preliminary instructions as to how the trial will take place and also an instruction on note-taking. Does everyone have a pen and notepad? If you can hold those up for me so I can see. For the record, each juror has a pen and notepad. After I've given you these two instructions, at that point, the parties will have their opportunities to give their opening statements and the state will proceed with its case. Once again, throughout this trial process, I will be reading to you quite a bit. Again, it's not that I just do not wish to speak to you in a normal fashion, but the instruction that you are to receive from the court concerning the law during this case is to be specific and it is to be uniform. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you have been selected and sworn as the jury to try the case of the state of Florida versus Donna Adelson. This is a criminal case. Donna Adelson is charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, and solicitation to commit first-degree murder. The definition of these offenses will be explained to you later in this trial. The state's charging document, which is called an indictment, is not evidence and it is not to be considered by you as any proof of guilt. It is my responsibility to explain the law to you. It is your solemn responsibility to determine if the state proved its accusations beyond a reasonable doubt against Donna Adelson in accordance with the law that I will provide to you. Thus, the province of the jury and the province of the court are well-defined and they do not overlap. This is one of the fundamental principles of our system of justice. Before proceeding further, it will be helpful if you understand how a trial is conducted. At the beginning of the trial, the attorneys will have an opportunity if they wish to make an opening statement. The opening statement gives the attorneys a chance to tell you what evidence they believe will be presented during the trial. What the lawyers say is not evidence and you are not to consider it as such. Following the opening statements, witnesses will be called to testify under oath. They will be examined and cross-examined by the attorneys. Documents and other exhibits may also be produced as evidence. After the evidence has been presented, the court will give you instructions on the law. The attorneys will then have the opportunity to make their closing arguments. Following the closing arguments by the attorneys, the court will conclude with final instructions. After the final instructions are given, the alternate jurors will be released and you will then retire to consider your verdict in this matter. You should not form any definite or fixed opinions on the merits of this case until you have heard all the evidence, the argument of the lawyers, and the instruction on the law that I will provide to you. Until that time, you should not discuss the case amongst yourselves. Your verdict must be based solely on the evidence or lack of evidence and the law. I now instruct you not to communicate with anyone, including your fellow jurors, about this case. No communication includes no emailing, text messaging, tweeting, blogging, or any other form of communication. You cannot do any research about the case or look up any information about the case. If you become aware of any violation of these rules at all, please notify my courtroom personnel concerning the violation. During the course of the trial, the court may take recesses or breaks, and you will be permitted to separate and go about your affairs, or you'll be returned to the jury room. During these recesses or breaks, you must not discuss the case with anyone, nor permit anyone to say anything to you or in your presence about this case. If anyone attempts to say anything to you or in your presence about this case, please tell him or her that you are on the jury that is trying the case and ask that person to stop. If he or she persists, leave that person at once and immediately report the matter to my bailiff, who will advise me. All cell phones, computers, tablets, or other types of electronic devices must be turned off while you are in the courtroom. Turned off means that the phone or electronic device is actually off and not in a silent or vibrating mode. You may use your devices during any recesses or breaks, but even then, you may not use your cell phones or electronic devices to find out any information about the case or to communicate with anyone about the case or the people that are involved in the case. Do not take photographs, video recordings, or audio recordings of the proceedings or of your fellow jurors. After each recess or break, please double-check to make sure your cell phone or electronic device is turned off. At the end of the case, while you are deliberating, you must not communicate with anyone outside of the jury room. You cannot have in the jury room any cell phones, computers, or other electronic devices. If someone needs to contact you in an emergency, the court can receive messages and they will be delivered to you without delay. A contact phone number will be provided to you for this very purpose. The case must be tried by you only on the evidence presented during the trial, in your presence, and in the presence of the defendant, the attorneys, and myself. Jurors must not conduct any investigation of their own. This would include reading newspapers, watching television, using a computer, cell phone, the internet, any electronic device, or any other means at all to get information related to this case, or the people and places that are involved in this case. This instruction is going to apply to you whether you're in the courthouse, at home, or any other location until the trial has concluded. You must not visit places that are mentioned in the trial or use the internet to look at maps or pictures to see any place that is discussed during the trial. Jurors must not have discussions of any sort with friends or family members about the case or the people and places involved. So do not let even the closest of family members make comments to you or ask questions about this trial. In this age of electronic communication, I want to stress again that just as you must not talk about this case face-to-face, you must not talk about this case by using an electronic device. You must not use phones, computers, or other electronic devices to communicate. Do not send or accept any messages that are related to this case or your jury service. Do not discuss this case or ask for advice by any means at all, including posting information on an internet website, chatroom, or blog. What are the reasons for these rules? These rules are imposed because jurors must decide the case without distraction and only on the evidence presented in the courtroom. If you investigate, research, or make inquiries on your own, I will have no way to make sure the information that you have obtained is actually proper and relevant to this case. The parties, likewise, have no opportunity to dispute or challenge the accuracy of what you may find. That is contrary to our judicial system, which assures every party the right to ask questions about and challenge the evidence being considered against it and to present argument with respect to that evidence. Any independent investigation by a juror unfairly and improperly prevents the parties from having the opportunity that our judicial system promises. Any juror who violates these restrictions jeopardizes the fairness of the proceedings, and a mistrial could result that would require the entire trial process to start over. A mistrial is a tremendous expense and inconvenience to the parties, the court, and all taxpayers. If you violate these rules, you may be held in contempt of court and face sanctions, such as serving time in jail, paying a fine, or potentially both. In every criminal proceeding, a defendant has the absolute right to remain silent. At no time is it the duty of a defendant to prove her innocence. From the exercise of a defendant's right to remain silent, a jury is not permitted to draw any inference of guilt, and the fact that a defendant did not take the witness stand must not influence your verdict in any manner whatsoever. The attorneys are trained in the rules of evidence and trial procedure, and it is their duty to make all objections they believe are proper. When an objection is made, you must not speculate on what might have occurred had the objection not been sustained, nor what a witness might have said had he or she been permitted to answer that question. During the trial, it may be necessary for me to confer with the attorneys out of your hearing to discuss matters that require my consideration alone. It is impossible to predict when such a conference may be required or for how long such a conference may last. When such conferences occur, they will be conducted so as to consume as little of your time as is necessary for a fair and orderly trial of this case. If you would like to take notes during the trial, you may do so. On the other hand, of course, you are not required to take notes if you choose not to. This is going to be an individual choice for each juror. You have been provided with a notepad and pen for your use if you do wish to take notes. Any notes that you take will be for your personal use. However, you are not to remove your notepads from the courtroom. During any recess or break, you are to leave your notepads in your seats. When the trial reconvenes, you will have access to your notepads once again. After you have completed your deliberations in this matter, my bailiff will deliver your notepads to me. From there, your notepads will be destroyed. No one will ever read your notes. If you choose to take notes during this trial, please do not get so involved in notepad that you've become distracted from the actual proceedings. Your notes should only be used as an aid to your memory. Is the state prepared to give its opening statement at this time? You may proceed. [00:12:01] Speaker 2: Good morning, everybody. Again, I'm Sarah Catherine Dugan. Georgia Kappelman and I are representing the state of Florida in this cave. And this is the defendant, Donna Adelson. We see her here at the defense table. And this is how she appeared back in 2014 when this crime occurred 11 years ago. And the reason that we're here today is because this defendant, Donna Adelson, was part of a conspiracy to hire a hit man to kill her former son-in-law, Dan Markell. This murder was set into motion because back in 2014, this defendant's family had a big problem. And the big problem was Dan Markell. And the solution to that problem was the defendant's son, Charlie Adelson. Charlie Adelson was the solution because he had a girlfriend with connections to the type of people who were willing and capable of pointing a gun at a complete stranger and pulling the trigger. The victim in this case, Dan Markell, was known as Danny to his friends and family. He was a loving father to two little boys, and he was a highly respected law professor at Florida State University College of Law. Tragically, on July 18th of 2014, Dan Markell was shot in the head in broad daylight in the driveway of his home in the Benton Hills neighborhood here in Tallahassee. The last day of his life began like any other day of his that summer. He woke up, he took his two young sons to preschool, and then he went to the gym to work out. After finishing his workout, he returned home. He pulled into his driveway, and he opened his garage. But little did he know that throughout his entire routine that morning, he was being followed by two hired hit men who traveled all the way to Tallahassee from Miami for the sole purpose of taking his life. And like something out of a horror movie, when he pulled into his driveway, the killers pulled in right behind him. Moments later, Dan Markell's neighbor heard a gunshot, and he looked out the window and saw a light-colored Toyota Prius back quickly out of Dan Markell's driveway and speed away. The neighbor thought that was very unusual, very suspicious, so he waited a second to see if Dan Markell also backed out of his driveway or came out of his house. And when he didn't see him, the neighbor got a very funny feeling. And he went over to Dan Markell's open garage to see if there was anything wrong. And he found a gruesome scene. Dan Markell's car window, his driver's side window, was shattered. His glasses and his phone were on the ground next to his car. And Dan Markell was behind the wheel. He was unresponsive and moaning and terribly injured. The neighbor called 911 and law enforcement arrived to find Dan Markell with a gunshot wound to the head. He was taken to the hospital where he survived for about 14 hours before he was pronounced dead. Dan Markell was only 41 years old. And his little boys, who were deprived of their father after this murder, were just three and four years old. Bless you. [00:15:46] Speaker ?: Bless you. [00:15:47] Speaker 2: Bless you. Law enforcement began to investigate, to try to figure out who did this, who shot Dan Markell. The scene there, the crime scene, left no trace of the killers. There was no fingerprints, no DNA, no bullet casing, nothing was stolen. And so police began to suspect that this may be a professional killing. The little evidence that they do have sends them down two separate paths. One path is to track down that light-colored Prius that the neighbor saw fleeing from the scene. And the other is to identify who, well, and who was inside that Prius. And the other path relates to motive. Who in Dan Markell's life would hate him enough to hire a professional killer to kill him? And after years of tireless investigation, both of these paths led directly to this defendant. So, first let's talk about the path involving motive. We'll go down both paths this morning. Police investigated Dan Markell's personal life to try to figure out a motive in this case, to see who might want him dead. And they learned that Dan Markell was entangled in a very nasty divorce with his ex-wife, who is the defendant's daughter. And his ex-wife is named Wendy Adelson. A review of the divorce case file reveals that Wendy Adelson had asked the court to allow her to relocate to Miami, where she was from and where her parents lived, with her children and Dan Markell's children, in order to be closer to her mother, Donna Adelson, to her father, whose name is Harvey Adelson, and to her brother, whose name is Charlie Adelson. The victim, Dan Markell, as you all can imagine, is adamantly opposed to this, to his children being relocated to Miami. He works here in Tallahassee. He's a law professor here in Tallahassee. This is where he lives. This is where his kids have been raised. He wants his children here with him. A review by law enforcement of Wendy Adelson's emails made it clear that her mother, the defendant, hated Dan Markell, and was the relentless driving force behind Wendy's relocation efforts to South Florida. And, you know, being a caring and involved parent is great, but the defendant's participation in her children's lives went beyond mere involvement or even meddling. She was extremely controlling. She had very strong opinions about all the decisions in Wendy Adelson's life, whether it be about her career, her relationships, or even purchasing a home. And if Wendy Adelson would not do as the defendant wanted her to do, the defendant often then enlisted Charlie Adelson, her son, Wendy's brother, to solve the problem by getting him to kind of go to Wendy and persuade Wendy until Wendy ultimately agreed to do what the defendant wanted her to do. And while the defendant had always been controlling of her children's lives, the emails uncovered by law enforcement showed that this defendant was desperate to find a way for Wendy and Dan Markell's children, her grandchildren, to be able to relocate to Miami. The defendant told Wendy that she deserved more than just a life teaching in Tallahassee without her family and that Dan Markell was essentially holding her hostage in Tallahassee because of his job. During the divorce and custody battle, the defendant's email showed that she was heavily involved in Wendy's court case, even going so far as to draft and edit the documents that Wendy and her attorney were filing in court And emailing Wendy instructions for her attorney on arguments her attorney should make and what her attorney should do. The defendant would guilt trip Wendy Adelson about how much time she and her husband, Harvey Adelson, were having to spend away from their dental practice to visit Wendy and the grandkids in Tallahassee. and complain about how the family was losing income, losing patience because of their constant absences from the practice and the defendant instructed Wendy Adelson that relocation to Miami was the most important priority in this divorce and if it had to be her non-negotiable in the divorce. In June of 2013, the judge in the divorce case ended up ruling in Dan Markell's favor. And not only did the judge deny Wendy's relocation motion, but the judge dismissed it in a way that prevented Wendy Adelson from requesting the relocation again. So Wendy would not be permitted to move to Miami to be close to the defendant and her husband with the children at that time or ever. Unless, of course, unless, of course, something happened to Dan Markell. After the judge denied the relocation motion, after that was denied, the defendant told Wendy Adelson in emails that Dan Markell has not beaten the Adelson family yet. She let Wendy let Wendy know that the Adelson family is a team and they are trying to win. Donna Adelson suggested in her emails several bribes to get Dan Markell to agree to relocation, like plane tickets, paying for her grandson's education. And the defendant even suggested offering Dan Markell a $1 million bribe to allow the relocation, to let Wendy move to Miami with the boys. And if the bribes didn't work, the defendant also suggested several ways that Wendy could threaten or bully Dan Markell into submission. The defendant told Wendy to aggravate Dan Markell like he aggravates you. And the defendant set out a plan of action that the defendant told Wendy would make Dan Markell absolutely miserable. And she's detailing all of these in her emails. So, for the plan of action, the defendant knew that Dan Markell was devoutly Jewish. So, she came up with the idea for Wendy to pose Dan Markell's sons for pictures in front of a Catholic church. And then post the pictures to social media. And even announced on social media she was getting the children baptized just to make it appear to Dan Markell that she was changing their religion. The defendant assured Wendy Adelson that this would all be an act to get Dan Markell to agree to let her move to Miami. But told Wendy Adelson that in order to pull off the stunt, she had to put on the acting performance of her life. The defendant said that it did not matter to her if Wendy had to dress her two little toddlers up in Nazi or SS uniforms. As long as she was able to get them to South Florida and show Dan Markell that he was not in control. The defendant repeatedly told Wendy Adelson that the rest of her life, meaning Wendy's life, as well as the defendant's life, Harvey Adelson's life, and Charlie Adelson's life, depended on Wendy Adelson and the boys being able to relocate to Miami. And the defendant said that she would never, never, never give up and never stop fighting for Wendy and the boys to be relocated to Miami. And she never did. The evidence in this case will show you that this defendant's closest confidant was her son, Charlie Adelson. She and Charlie Adelson talk multiple times a day, every day. And he was the person with whom she would constantly vent and complain to about Wendy's situation here in Tallahassee, having to live in Tallahassee with her sons. And she would often, the defendant would use very dramatic life and death terms to describe it. The defendant portrayed Dan Markell to Charlie Adelson as a crazy person who was impossible to deal with and was causing an extreme amount of stress to Donna Adelson and her husband, Harvey Adelson. And Charlie Adelson was also the person that Donna Adelson relied on to solve her problems. And her daughter and grandsons having to live eight hours away in Tallahassee was a big, big problem for this defendant. And this defendant made it Charlie Adelson's problem to solve. And although the divorce between Wendy and Dan Markell was final a year before the murder, throughout that year, litigation is still ongoing, to say the least. Each side is continuing to routinely file violations of the custody agreement, violations of the settlement agreement. And that continued right up until Dan Markell's death in 2014. A few months before the murder in 2014, Dan Markell alleged that the defendant, Donna Adelson, was disparaging him to his children. He was very worried about her trying to alienate him from his children. She was doing this by calling him stupid in front of the boys and telling the boys that Dan Markell was trying to take them away from her. Dan Markell asked the court to prevent this defendant from having unsupervised contact with her grandchildren. And this motion was still pending in court when Dan Markell was killed. And the murder of Dan Markell ensured that not having access to her grandchildren would never be a problem for this defendant. And what do you know, about 48 hours after Dan Markell was killed, or after the shooting happened, Wendy Adelson and the little boys relocated to Miami, moved into the defendant's home with her, and the boys started school down the street. And just like that, their father was effectively erased from their lives, and the Adelson's big problem had been solved. You'll hear during this trial that the Adelson family is a very tight-knit family. The defendant, her son, Charlie Adelson and her husband, Harvey Adelson, actually all worked together at their family's dental practice. The defendant, I'm sorry, Harvey Adelson and Charlie Adelson are dentists there, and the defendant managed their accounts at the office. She was the details person. And this defendant, though, she managed much more than just the office for the Adelson family. She was the matriarch, and a domineering one at that. She ran the office, the home, and the lives of the Adelson family members. After Dan Markell was killed, law enforcement interviewed Wendy Adelson. Wendy Adelson told police, and the police confirmed this, that she was at home having her TV fixed, at her home in Tallahassee, having her TV fixed at the time of Dan Markell's murder. And when police asked her, well, you know, do you know anyone who would have a motive to kill Dan Markell? Wendy Adelson acknowledged that her family had a motive to want Dan Markell dead, and said that her parents had more reason to dislike Dan Markell than anybody else. At one point in the interview, police allowed Wendy Adelson to make a phone call to her parents to let them know that Dan Markell had been shot. And after she got off the phone with her mother, the defendant, Wendy Adelson said to police, Well, they acted surprised, so that's a relief. And when asked by law enforcement if anyone could have killed Dan Markell on her behalf, she also told the police about her brother, Charlie Adelson. Wendy admitted to police that her brother, Charlie Adelson, Adelson had joked that he looked into hiring a hitman to kill Dan Markell as a divorce present, but decided to buy her a TV instead because it was cheaper. And what do you know? The same TV that Charlie Adelson bought his sister as a divorce gift would be Wendy Adelson's alibi the morning of the murder. An alibi, the TV repair appointment that was set up by her parents, Harvey Adelson and Wendy, and Donna Adelson, the defendant. So this path of looking into Dan Markell's personal life to see who would have motive to kill him leads law enforcement to the Adelsons, including this defendant, a woman who vowed to never, never, never, never give up on getting her daughter and grandsons to Miami and her son, Charlie Adelson, who told his family that he'd looked into hiring a hitman to kill Dan Markell, as Wendy said, was just a joke. But if Charlie Adelson was just joking about hiring a hitman, that joke, that stopped being funny when Dan Markell was actually killed by a hitman. While the police are trying to investigate motive, they are simultaneously following that second path of the investigation by tracking down that light-colored Prius the neighbor saw fleeing from the scene. When law enforcement retraced Dan Markell's steps on the morning of his murder, they uncovered some very chilling surveillance video of that light-colored Prius, fitting the description given by the neighbor, following Dan Markell into the Premier Gym parking lot and waiting for an hour while he was inside, and then following him home from Premier Gym back to Benton Hills. And these surveillance images, coupled with a massive amount of phone and SunPass records gathered in this case, helped police track down the exact car used to commit this crime. But police still had to figure out, okay, we got the car, but who was in this car? And why did that person kill Dan Markell? So law enforcement did a painstaking review of digital evidence in this case. And when I say painstaking, finding this Prius and finding evidence in these phone records was not an easy task. And it took much longer than your average investigation of a shooting, as you'll hear. But law enforcement eventually found that needle in the haystack. They found a number that communicated with the cell tower that services Premier Gym at the exact time when the Prius was there. And it was a number with a Miami area code. And that number belonged to a man named Sigfredo Garcia. Law enforcement examined Garcia's call logs, and they saw that he was in frequent contact with another number that was present at Premier Gym that day. And that number belonged to a man named Luis Rivera, who is a longtime friend of Garcia. And he's also from Miami. They both are. Police then looked at Garcia and Rivera's phone records, which showed that their phones left Miami two days before the murder, so July 16th. They came to Tallahassee, and on the day of the murder, on the 18th, they followed Markell to Premier Gym. The phone data shows that these men turned their phones off just minutes before the murder took place, and their phones then stayed off for about an hour or so after the murder until they were well southbound to Miami, I think around the Gainesville area, the phones turned back on. And then, once they got back to Miami, a bank's ATM camera caught them in the light-colored Prius at a bank drive-through and caught both of the men in the Prius. So police figured out the identity of the two men responsible for following and killing Dan Markell, but they continued to look for evidence to explain why these seemingly random men came all the way to Miami. I'm sorry, came all the way to Tallahassee, to kill a man that they'd never met. What or who is the connection between the killers and the victim? The defendant in her emails obviously had demonstrated ample motive to want Dan Markell dead, but how do we get from these two random and hired killers to her? Well, those phone records that I talked about, they revealed that one of the shooter, Garcia's, one of the most frequent contacts, was a woman named Catherine Magbanois. She goes by Katie. The shooter and Magbanois have a long history of an on-again, off-again relationship, and they share two kids in common. This is Garcia and Magbanois. And, lo and behold, these two paths of the shooter's car and the motive, they converge when law enforcement sees that Catherine Magbanois is also one of the most frequent contacts in the phone records of Charlie Adelson, the defendant's son. The same son that she had been nagging to death about his sister being stuck in Tallahassee. Law enforcement also learns that at the time of this murder, Catherine Magbanois was dating Charlie Adelson. So, Dan Markell was a problem, the defendant needed to solve. The defendant's son, Charlie Adelson, was looking to hire a hitman to kill Dan Markell. Dan Markell is killed by a hitman, and who ended up being the hitman? The hitman that killed Dan Markell, someone with a close relationship to Charlie Adelson's girlfriend, the father of her children. So, you can see how both paths, followed by investigators, charted the way to this defendant, not only by looking into the motive led law enforcement to the defendant because of her hatred of Dan Markell and her son's apparent efforts to hire someone to kill him, but also looking into that car fleeing the scene led law enforcement to the defendant through her son's girlfriend at the time. So, two investigations, one conclusion. Law enforcement also tried to follow the money in this case, and that was a third way that the evidence in this case pointed to the defendant. Law enforcement reviewed bank records, employment records, SMV records of all the suspects, and saw that in the months after the homicide, Garcia, Rivera, and Magbanwa all acquired some big-ticket items. Rivera and Garcia both bought motorcycles and cars. Magbanwa got a breast augmentation surgery and later received a black Lexus sedan, whose previous owner was Harvey Adelson. Catherine Magbanwa's bank records were analyzed, and there was no check ever written or matching cash withdrawal for the car or the breast augmentation. Bank records also showed that Magbanwa's account had a huge spike in cash deposits around the time of the murder. She deposited more money in her account in the five weeks after the murder than in the entire year before the murder. And this was during a time when there was no record of her being employed anywhere. And also, about two months after the murder, this defendant added Catherine Magbanwa to the payroll at the Adelson family's dental practice, the one that she kept the accounts for, the defendant kept the accounts for. And the defendant started issuing her regular checks from their business account every two weeks, despite the fact that she did not work there at the time. Magbanwa didn't work there. Law enforcement noticed that each one of the 44 checks that were written to Catherine Magbanwa every two weeks over the course of the next two years after the murder were signed by this defendant, Donna Adelson. So, the money was talking, but what about the suspects? Law enforcement wanted to know what they were saying. In examining the phone records in this case, law enforcement noticed a distinct pattern of communication surrounding important events or dates in this case. The phone calls always went from this defendant to her son, Charlie Adelson, and then from her son, Charlie Adelson, to his girlfriend, Catherine Magbanwa, and then from his girlfriend, Catherine Magbanwa, to the shooter, Garcia, and then back the other way, like train cars. They only seem to touch the car directly in front and directly behind them. The defendant never calls her son's girlfriend, Catherine Magbanwa, or the shooter, or vice versa. Charlie Adelson never calls the shooter, or vice versa. So, if this is a murder-for-hire conspiracy, as law enforcement suspects, could it be that the defendant and Charlie Adelson are wisely insulating themselves from the actual shooters by having Magbanwa act as the middleman? Law enforcement decided to launch an undercover operation designed to clarify who are the members of this conspiracy and how information was traveling within the conspiracy. Police applied for and received court authorization to listen in real time to the phone calls of Charlie Adelson and Catherine Magbanwa, the people in the middle of this train car. And this is what's known as a wiretap. By this point, though, it was April of 2016. It took about two years to do this investigation to find out who was in the car and to get this wiretap going. So, at this point, it's been two years, almost two years, since the murder. And at this point, in April of 2016, Charlie Adelson and Magbanwa are no longer dating. They've been broken up for over a year. Catherine Magbanwa, at this point, is actually back together with Garcia. We heard they're on again, off again, and have these kids together. Charlie Adelson has moved on. He's had many other girlfriends at that point since Magbanwa. And Charlie Adelson and Magbanwa, though, they are still friends. They remain close friends since their breakup, and they're still in regular communication by April of 2016, even though they're not together anymore. Rivera, the second hitman in that Prius, was in prison by this point, doing time on an unrelated charge. And the defendant is happily taking care of her grandkids all day, every day. So, all the members of this conspiracy have presumably gone on with their lives, believing they've gotten away with murder. So, what reason would they have to be discussing the murder at that point, if the police are listening in? They wouldn't. So, police needed to stage an event that would generate some conversation, some activity, between the members of the conspiracy so they could see who the members of the conspiracy were. Their plan was to send an undercover agent posing as someone on behalf of Luis Rivera. He was the hitman who was incarcerated by April of 2016. To walk up to the defendant, Donna Adelson, on the street. There's a fly right in front of me. It won't leave me alone. To walk up to Donna Adelson on the street and try to blackmail her for money. Law enforcement refers to this as a bum. So, this undercover agent posing as a blackmailer, and this is an actual picture from the surveillance cameras, that this is the undercover agent passing a piece of paper to Donna Adelson back in 2016. This undercover agent is posing as a blackmailer. He hands the defendant a piece of paper, and on the piece of paper is a news article about Dan Markell's murder. And written on the piece of paper is a phone number and the amount of $5,000. He tells the defendant that he knows that Adelsons are taking care of Katie, and he's basically there to blackmail, to get more money out of them, or out of her, on Rivera's behalf, to even things out, because he knows they're taking care of Katie. He never says Charlie Adelson's name, or anything about Charlie Adelson to Donna Adelson. The defendant then puts the piece of paper in her purse and walks away without ever looking at the piece of paper because she knew exactly what it was about. Then, law enforcement listens in to see what will happen next. Will the defendant go straight to the police to report the blackmail, or will she do something else entirely? And as suspected, based on the previously observed communication problem, the first person that this defendant called is Charlie Adelson, despite the fact that the blackmailer never mentioned Charlie Adelson to her. On that first call, you would think the first thing that Donna Adelson would say to Charlie Adelson is, oh my God, it's so crazy. Some man just came up to me, handed me an article about Danny's murder, and he's demanding money from us. But she never says any of that. In fact, the defendant never says Dan Markell's name at all. Instead, he tells Charlie Adelson that she needs to talk to him in person about some paperwork that was just delivered to her. She said that it involves the two of us. And that he should know what she's talking about. The defendant and Charlie Adelson continue talking, and she says that he should bring cash to their meeting. And she says, the TV is probably about five. The defendant tells Charlie Adelson that the man who approached her mentioned an ex-girlfriend. The defendant never says which ex-girlfriend of Charlie Adelson. She never says Magdan was named to Charlie Adelson in that phone call. She only says that the blackmailer mentioned an ex-girlfriend. Charlie Adelson never asked his mom, my ex-girlfriend? Which ex-girlfriend? He's had a lot. He never asked that. Because as the evidence will show, he didn't need to. He knew the TV is probably five meant that she was being blackmailed about Danny's murder where the TV was the alibi. And he knew that the ex-girlfriend in question was the only ex-girlfriend that he had solicited to to find a hitman for him, Catherine Magbanwa. And we know that because after this call with his mother, the defendant, Charlie Adelson, calls Catherine Magbanwa. He does not call his most recent ex-girlfriend or even the one before that. He calls Catherine Magbanwa. And his call to Catherine Magbanwa is the only call he makes to any ex-girlfriend after getting the information from his mother that the blackmailer mentioned an ex-girlfriend. And he hadn't dated her for about a year and a half at that point. And although they threatened to do it very often, neither Charlie Adelson nor the defendant ever reported this attempted blackmail to the police. You all will hear the calls between the conspirators. And as you listen to these, you'll notice that they're being very cautious about what they say. It's apparent that they're being very careful about the words they use because they are all immediately suspicious that law enforcement could be behind the bump. Law enforcement could be the person who came up to them on the street and gave her the paperwork. And law enforcement could also be listening to their conversations. After Charlie Adelson's first call to Catherine Magbanwa, Charlie Adelson then meets up in person with his mother, the defendant. And in person, she gives him the paperwork that this blackmailer gave to her and makes it Charlie Adelson's newest problem to solve. And naturally, what does Charlie Adelson do? He goes to the next train car, Catherine Magbanwa. Charlie Adelson and Catherine Magbanwa meet in person at a restaurant called Dolce Vita in Miami. And while they sit at their table in this busy, noisy restaurant, an undercover FBI agent is sitting at a table nearby with a camera hidden in a bag recording the conversation. So this is an image from that video recording the conversation. And in the recording, we hear Charlie Adelson discussing whether the man who walked up to his mother could be an undercover police officer or he could be someone trying to legitimately blackmail them. And if it's a blackmailer, is it somebody who just saw a way to make a quick buck or is it another situation entirely which would be much worse for the Adelsons? Is it actually someone with inside information about Donna Adelson's role in the murder of Dan Markell? And that person could tell police what they know. Charlie Adelson reassures Katie, Catherine McBanois, that if it is the police, that is a good thing. Charlie Adelson thinks that, hey, if it's the police, that means the police don't have enough evidence to charge anybody. You know, they're just fishing for information. And in fact, Charlie Adelson tells her, hey, if they had any evidence, we would have already gone to the airport. It's important to note that at the time of this conversation at Dolce Vita, no arrests had been made in this case. And the only thing that police had released to the public at that point was a photo of the light-colored Prius that fled the scene. Police knew at that point that it was Garcia and Rivera who were in the Prius, but the public didn't know that yet. So, that fact is interesting in light of some of the things that Charlie Adelson started saying to Meg Banwa. He starts giving her several analogies involving rental cars being used to commit crimes. He reassures her that the police can't prove a person committed a crime just from someone's DNA being in a car that was used in a crime. In order to prove someone committed a crime, you have to be able to put the person at the scene of the crime at the time that was committed. So, he's trying to reassure her that even if police, even if they identify who rented that car that fled the scene, they still would not have enough evidence to hold anybody responsible for this murder. Charlie Adelson also says that crimes are tough to prove unless someone actually witnessed the suspect commit the crime or the suspect confesses to the crime or a suspect is caught on a wire talking about the crime. So, he's trying to reassure her about the lack of evidence in this case about no witnesses And trying to let her know that hey, as long as we all stay quiet and nobody confesses or gets caught talking on a wire then we don't have anything to worry about. And he begins educating Catherine McBanois about how blackmail works. He tells her that hey, this is a guy who knows information there's two ways of dealing with this guy. You know, we could call the police but then the guy blackmailing us could be charged and then that blackmailer is going to start talking and the police are going to be asking questions about what happened. The other option is to pay the blackmailer but let him know that this is just a one-time thing and we'll try to scare him off by saying if you come around again we'll go to the police. Charlie Adelson gives McBanois very precise instructions on how to deal with the blackmailer. He tells her to call the blackmailer and tell her that my friends meaning the Adelson family have no idea what you're talking about and I'm just going to give you this money as charity but don't contact these people again or they'll go to the police and Charlie Adelson said he would give McBanois the 5,000 to pay off the blackmailer who approached his mother except that he's concerned that this guy won't go away he'll get that 5,000 and then he'll just keep coming back and coming back for more money we'll see him as an easy target and so Charlie Adelson then offers that the best solution might be to have the blackmailer killed and that he's willing to pay whatever it takes he says so help me God if they F with my family it's gonna be Nazi shit because this will be done I mean Katie I don't care what I spend and after hearing that Charlie Adelson wants someone killed and is willing to pay whatever it takes to get it done McBanois then asks Charlie Adelson to help her out and Charlie Adelson reassures her she'll be taken care of and reminds her she's on salary at the parents dental practice after Charlie Adelson finishes this meeting where he's getting McBanois to then solve the problem of the blackmailer he gives her they say goodbye he gives her a big hug that's captured on camera outside by the FBI and then Charlie Adelson immediately calls the defendant to let her know everything's fine and he has handled the situation he does this using some pretty obvious code words that you'll often hear these conspirators use to mask the meaning of what they're talking about in case law enforcement's listening McBanois then also using code words calls Garcia and she tasks him with calling the number on the paperwork and finding the identity of the blackmailer and in the series of recorded calls that y'all are going to hear later this week you'll hear these conspirators talking and using words like TV relationship advice false leads listings patients properties clients rap songs CDs pigs all these terms that are obviously normal words but they're used in context that if you're listening to the conversation don't make sense so after that undercover operation was over in 2016 Rivera Luis Rivera and Sigfredo Garcia are arrested and they're charged with the same charges before y'all in this trial Luis Rivera who was the second person in that Prius cut a deal with the state and told law enforcement the truth about the murder of Dan Markell and the people responsible for it he told police that he was hired by his longtime friend Garcia to help kill Dan Markell Rivera described how Garcia told him that this was a job that Magbanua was able to get for them and it was in Tallahassee and it paid $100,000 and that Rivera was going to get a third of the money Rivera said that during the trip to Tallahassee Garcia had a piece of paper with a picture of the man that they were hired to kill and some handwritten notes and during that trip Rivera said that the first call that either of them made after the homicide was from Garcia to Magbanua where Garcia told her that the job was done and Magbanua assured them they would get their money the next day which they did that Magbanua brought the money the next morning to Rivera's home and law enforcement checked cell phone records which corroborated Rivera's information law enforcement told police that the money that he received from Magbanua the next day was packaged in a very unusual way the money was basically in stacks of a thousand each stack was made up of ten hundred dollar bills that were then stapled together and after each stack was stapled together of a thousand and after learning this from Rivera Magbanua was arrested and that was in October of 2016 during this trial you'll hear that the Adelson family had access to a lot of cash because their family gave cash discounts at their dental practice like if you paid in cash you would have to pay less than if you paid on a card or check and they kept the cash that they received in stacks and they stored it in a safe law enforcement also learned from Charlie Adelson's friends that Charlie Adelson had a very unusual practice of keeping his money in these thousand dollar stacks that were stapled together just like the money Rivera received and over the last few years since the 2016 arrests of Garcia and Rivera in May and then of Magbanwa in October 2016 law enforcement has not stopped working on this case three years after Garcia's arrest in 2019 he was convicted at his trial law enforcement continue though to gather evidence they continue to interview people who may possibly have information and to clarify these all of these recordings the FBI did that couldn't be clearly heard and thanks to their tireless efforts in March of 2022 Charlie Adelson was indicted two months later in May of 2022 Catherine Magbanwa's case went to trial and she was convicted during Magbanwa's trial Catherine Magbanwa took the stand and she insisted this is back in May of 22 she insisted she had no knowledge of the murder the Adelson's must have just gone around her to hire the hitman directly that's what she testified to her defense team insisted that the state's theory was correct about every co-conspirative except for her for Catherine Magbanwa that Catherine Magbanwa was just this victim of bloodthirsty and desperate prosecutors investigators and just a victim of this set of circumstances that appeared to prove one thing but was actually the truth was something else entirely however after being convicted at trial and sentence Magbanwa finally decided to testify about the plot to kill Dan Markell and admitted that she was the connection between the Adelson family and the killers hired to kill Dan Markell Magbanwa testified in Charlie Adelson's trial in October of 2023 and said that Charlie Adelson wanted to hire someone to kill his sister's ex because his mom was stressed out over all of the problems his sister was having with her ex-husband Magbanwa said Charlie painted a picture that Wendy's ex was this terrible man causing his mom so much stress that she couldn't sleep or eat Magbanwa agreed to help him and ended up recruiting her children's father Garcia and also Rivera to kill Dan Markell she says that the night of the murder she went to Charlie Adelson's house to pick up the payment for the murder and when she arrived Charlie Adelson said that his parents had just been at the house and that Charlie Adelson had the money for her there law enforcement was able to corroborate this claim with phone evidence showing that Donna Adelson went to Charlie Adelson's house the night of the murder Magbanwa then spent the night with Charlie Adelson that night and the next morning on July 19th he put the money that she was to divide up into the trunk of her car Magbanwa says several things about the money stood out to her she said it was stapled together in stacks of hundred dollar bills and that it was damp like wet she then delivered the money to Garcia and Rivera afterwards when Catherine Marbanwa said that when Charlie Adelson when she asked Charlie Adelson about the money being damp he said that his mother had actually the defendant had actually washed the money and that she and Charlie Adelson kind of laughed about the fact that the defendant had literally washed the money so it couldn't be traced in Charlie Adelson's trial Charlie Adelson took the stand and he testified that Magbanwa Garcia and Rivera were all in on this crime together but that the Adelson's had nothing to do with it they were the innocent ones he crafted an elaborate story in which Garcia and Rivera came to Tallahassee on their own killed Dan Markell without his knowledge or his family's knowledge and then colluded these killers colluded with Magbanwa to play he and his mother for fools and extort money out of them and for many reasons which will be revealed to y'all in this trial Charlie's interpretation of the facts was not reasonable to believe and he was convicted Charlie Adelson was convicted in November of 2023 and within hours of his guilty verdict this defendant began to plan to flee the United States to a country that she could not be extradited from in order to avoid being arrested for Dan Markell's murder the defendant on her phone researched countries that did not have extradition treaties with the United States and she applied for an emergency visa to Vietnam she was overheard planning to put her money in trust for her grandchildren and she and her husband purchased one-way tickets with a fast-track emergency visa to Vietnam and Vietnam does not have an extradition treaty with the U.S. as she would have learned from her searches and just days later she was stopped by law enforcement on the jetway in Miami International Airport where she was boarding her one-way flight to Vietnam and she was then charged for her participation in the murder of Dan Markell after the defendant was charged law enforcement received information from women who said that the defendant Donna Adelson was offering them bribes in exchange for false testimony in this trial they said Donna Adelson promised them money housing veneers prescripts and drugs if they were willing to testify that Catherine Magmanois told them a completely different story about the crime than the one that she would be testifying to one informant was even able to show law enforcement a script a question and answer session for a direct examination and trial that Donna Adelson herself wrote and that Donna Adelson wanted this informant to memorize and come into court and perjure herself by reciting it to you here in trial please listen to all of the evidence that you are going to see and hear in this trial I know it's been a long week already and we have a lot of evidence for you in this case but when you do you will see that this defendant conspired with her son Charlie Adelson who solicited his girlfriend Catherine McBanois to get this murder done and then this defendant paid her with cash with checks for the job once it was completed the defendant acted in furtherance of this murder plot that went beyond just thinking about it or just talking about it and these acts make her guilty as a principle to first degree murder just as if she was the one pulling the trigger in the garage herself and while the defendant's choices helped solve a problem within her family they came at a very high price she took the life of a loving father of two little boys and caused a lifetime of grief for Dan Markell's loved ones and at the conclusion of the evidence in this case you will be convinced beyond any reasonable doubt that this defendant is guilty and at that point we'll ask you for the only verdict that does justice in this case which is a verdict that this defendant is guilty as charged thank you [01:06:26] Speaker 1: All right, briefly approach.