The seventh day of Donna Adelson’s trial trailed a web of phone calls and other evidence in the infamous 2014 murder-for-hire scheme that killed her ex son-in-law, Dan Markel.
Katherine Magbanua, one of the state’s key witnesses and the middle-man to the hitmen, told jurors Aug. 26 that she was paid for doing no work at the Adelson’s dental practice. TPD Sgt. Christopher Corbitt, meanwhile, traced a web of incriminating calls and texts for the jury on Aug. 26, and is expected to wrap his testimony Wednesday morning.
Donna, 75, is charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy and solicitation in one of Tallahassee’s most notorious cases. The crime has led to the convictions of four others, including her son, Charlie Adelson, who was convicted in 2023.
The matriarch of the Adelson family is accused of helping orchestrate a hit on Markel, a former Florida State University law professor, that led to two hitmen shooting him in the driveway of his home. At the time, he and his ex-wife, Wendi Adelson, were fighting in court over her attempt to move with their two young sons to Miami.
Here are the Aug. 27 updates from the Adelson trial:
Assistant State Attorney Georgia Cappleman requested to go into recess for the day as FBI Special Agent Pat Sanford’s testimony is expected to go for much longer.
Cappleman said he’d be on the stand most of the day tomorrow. Leon Circuit Judge Stephen Everett told everyone to report by 8:30 a.m. tomorrow.
FBI Special Agent Pat Sandford reviewed hundreds of calls in the investigation of Dan Markel’s murder.
«Did you find any evidence in the calls relating to Donna meddling in her kids lives?» Assistant State Attorney Georgia Cappleman asked.
«Yes, I did,» Sanford answered.
The state is now playing audio recordings of phone calls. The first call played was Charlie Adelson and his mother Donna Adelson talking about Wendi Adelson’s dating life two years after Markel’s murder.
«You would get 30 seconds into your planned speech before she’d tell you to butt out of her life,» Charlie said to his mother.
«I can talk to her differently than you,» he added.
Sanford said this wasn’t the only call that the two talked about Wendi’s dating life and that they discuss her career options as well.
«Are you familiar with the bump in this case?» Cappleman asked.
«I am,» Sanford said.
Sanford said he instructed the undercover agent to not be «too aggressive» when approaching Donna and avoid creating a «hostile environment» that could pose a threat to the officer’s safety. They weren’t sure if she would be armed at that time.
A video recording of the bump was played in court. The first person she calls after the encounter is her son.
«I got some paperwork hand-delivered to me,» Donna said in a recording of the phone call to Charlie.
«You’re being sued?» Charlie asked.
«No, that’s what I thought it was, but I need to talk to you,» she said.
«Does dad know about this?» Charlie asked.
«No dad’s at work,» she said.
«All right, does it involve me or other people?» Charlie asked.
«Well probably both of us … probably the two of us so you probably have a general idea of what I’m talking about,» she said.
Donna was adamant that she didn’t want to discuss it over the phone.
Did she report this incident to the police?» Cappleman asked.
«No,» Sanford answered.
A second phone call occurred shortly after. Charlie is heard saying, «Whatever it is, whatever someone sent you, I wouldn’t worry too much about anything. Someone can write whatever they want tot write and say whatever they want to say.»
«Do you think someone is trying to blackmail you?» Charlie asked.
«Maybe, could be. I don’t know,» Donna answered.
The recording continues with Charlie asking Donna questions trying to figure out what she received. He said if she was threatened she needed to go to the police.
«That’s what I’m tempted to do,» she said.
Sanford testified that by the second call Donna was speaking in code, and no one ever went to the police.
«Is there a third call in which Charlie calls back and presses for more information?» Cappleman asked.
Sanford said yes, roughly 15 minutes later he called back. Charlie asked questions about the man and pushed the point of going to the police again.
«I may have to but, you know, I’d rather talk to you first,» Donna said. She told Charlie the man asked her for $5,000 for the TV and mentioned an ex-girlfriend.
Cappleman questioned Sanford about the TV.
«Did he say he was buying a TV for $5,000?» she asked.
«No,» he answerd.
Sanford then explained how Charlie had previously joked about buying Wendi a TV because it was cheaper than hiring a hitman.
«Was that the same TV that served as Wendi’s alibi the day of the murder?» Cappleman asked.
«Yes,» Sanford said.
A third call was played. This time it was a conversation between Charlie and Magbanua, and Charlie was explaining his mother’s interaction with the undercover cop.
«I have no idea what this is in reference to … but something regarding her son, something regarding his ex-girlfriend,» Charlie said.
Magbanua asked if Donna called the cops and insinuated this could’ve been blackmail.
«You’re my last girlfriend so that’s why I’m calling you,» he said.
«You have like a thousand ex-girlfriends,» Magbanua said.
Sanford said he had recording equipment brought in to try and capture Donna and Charlie’s meeting but it was an unsuccessful attempt. He did, however, get photographs of the meet up.
«Can you describe the manner of this meeting?» Cappleman asked.
Sanford said they were talking very low, almost a whisper, and Charlie is usually «very loud.»
FBI Special Agent Louis Bronstein monitored surveillance of «the bump» back in 2016. Assistant State Attorney Georgia Cappleman questioned him after the undercover agent who approached Donna Adelson in the bump testified.
Bronstein was one of two FBI special agents who recorded Charlie Adelson and Katherine Magbanua at the Dolce Vita restaurant. The FBI recording of their conversation inside the restaurant would become a key piece of evidence that would haunt the two of them later.
«It was tough to hear because of the air conditioning system,» he said. He couldn’t make out what they were saying except for a moment when the air-conditioning went off.
Someone else had to clarify the audio.
The state then asked Keith McElveen to testify. He does audio engineering particularly in forensics and worked to clarify the audio from the Dolce Vita tapes.
Assistant State Attorney Georgia Cappleman asked him about his work on the tapes.
«It was … a busy restaurant,» McElveen said. The recording captured coffee grinders, expresso machines, kitchen noises and kids screaming. «It’s easier probably to list what wasn’t on the recording than what was,» he added.
Josh Zelman, Donna Adelson’s attorney, asked him about footage from the restaurant that he enhanced as well.
«Did you supply additional materials recently?» Zelman asked.
«What we did was not an enhancement» he said. Recently he overlayed the audio to match the video from the restaurant meet up.
McElveen stepped down, and former Special Agent Brian Kendall took his place on the witness stand.
Kendall participated in a surveillance operation focused on Charlie Adelson. He was asked to «surreptitiously record» Charlie at a restaurant while he met with his father Harvey Adelson. He had a recording device that captured audio and video.
He put the bag directly on the bar at the Miami sushi restaurant between him and Harvey to capture the audio to the best of his ability. He testified that his actions were likely suspicious to the father-son duo.
FBI Special Agent Patrick Sanford testified next. He was asked to assist with outside leads on the case and interviewed Luis Rivera.
Rivera told Sanford that the gun had gone off in rental car while her and Sigfredo Garcia and created a hole in the floor of the car. Garcia had to work to patch the car up and make it work again, as the bullet burst through the gas line.
«He told us that the homicide had to take place on the day it occurred because Mr. Markel was traveling out of town the next day,» Sanford testified.
The undercover agent who posed as a Latin Kings gang member and blackmailer in «the bump» nearly 10 years ago is the state’s next witness.
He explained that a bump is a law enforcement operation in which an undercover agent or undercover police officer encounters a person under investigation and attempts to interact with them while wearing a wire.
«You want to approach somebody and see if they talk about» whatever it is the agency is investigating, he said.
The witness approached Donna Adelson in April 2016 outside her Miami condo. He handed her a flyer that had a phone number written on it. Any calls would go directly to him.
Jackie Fulford, one of Donna’s attorneys, asked if he scared Donna when he approached her as she was taking the route she normally took to pick her grandkids up from school
«I think she was startled, I mean I’m not that good looking,» the undercover cop said.
«I said to her, ‘We know their problem up north had been taken care of and Katie and Tuto had been taken care of and my brother Tato had not being taken care off … something to that effect,» he said.
Tuto was Sigfredo Garcia’s nickname and Tato was Luis Rivera’s name. Both Garcia and Rivera were Latin Kings gang members.
A letter was sent to Donna later after she hadn’t responded to the undercover agent’s initial contact. He also called the Adelson Institute looking for Donna, and she didn’t reach back out or pay him the $5,000 that he was asking her for.
He agreed the letter was aggressive but that he was just looking for her to send the money, not necessarily for her to talk.
Finally, Donna called him back, Fulford said. She told him she wasn’t involved and to get the $100,000 that was being offered at the time for providing information to law enforcement about the murder of Dan Markel.
After a nearly four hour examination, the state finished questioning TPD Sgt. Christopher Corbitt and the is starting its cross.
Josh Zelman, Donna Adelson’s attorney, asked Corbitt about the specifics of the cell phone data he was able to collect.
«The closer to the tower, generally the better the quality of the signal is,» Corbitt said.
Topography, buildings and other things impact what cell towers phones interact with, he said. Corbitt compiled call frequency reports. It shows Donna Adelson has made 80 calls to Charlie Adelson from June 2014 to July 2014, but Corbitt said there’s no way to know if all 80 were successful calls. They could be attempts to call.
The call records also don’t have any information about the content of the calls. Seven calls were made between Charlie and Donna within the first weeks of June 2014.
«I do not consider it an abnormally high amount of communications,» Corbitt said in response to several of Zelman’s questions.
Between July 16 and July 18, 2014 − the timeframe Dan Markel was killed − only four calls or attempts to call were made between Charlie and Donna.
«Let’s talk about the emails briefly,» Zelman said.
Zelman asked questions about the birthday party that Donna was throwing for Harvey Adelson’s birthday. The state has previously suggested that texts discussing the birthday party and a present for Donna’s husband were code for the murder. The party was planned for July 5, 2014, according to the evite that was presented in the court room.
«I want to talk about the morning of July 18, 2014,» Zelman said.
Data showed two calls between Wendi Adelson and Donna. «We have multiple sets of records and multiple overlapping records,» Corbitt said.
«Typically in your field it’s best to use data that has more records than less,» Zelman said.
«Generally, yes,» Corbitt said.
«Have you gone back to determine who called whom first?» Zelman asked.
«I have not,» Corbitt answered.
Zelman said Donna got a call from the TV repairmen and then called her daughter: «Would that be consistent with both calls happening at 8:09 a.m.?»
«Yes,» Corbitt answered.
Corbitt is now explaining data he collected about Donna’s route to Charlie’s house on the day of Markel’s murder. The estimated travel time was 48 minutes but data found she took nearly two hours to get there. There’s an unaccounted hour that the defense says could likely be because of traffic due to construction on the Florida turnpike.
«Do you know how fast Donna Adelson and Harvey driving on July 18?» Zelman asked.
«No I do not,» Corbitt answered.
He flipped to another slide that tracked Donna and Harvey’s route to a hotel after stopping at Charlie’s home. It too took over two hours to arrive at the hotel.
«Do you know if they stopped for coffee? It was late at night,» Zelman said.
«No I don’t,» Corbitt said. «I did.»
«You were much younger than they were at the time and you stopped for coffee,» Zelman said.
Zelman noted that Corbitt couldn’t pinpoint Donna’s location exactly to show she was at Charlie’s house. But the state pointed out that Donna had sent a text to Charlie that said she was outside his home.
Corbitt finished testifying after a brief redirect from the state.
«Sergeant you may step down, finally,» Everett said, prompting laughs from the courtroom.
Leon Circuit Judge Stephen Everett released the jury for lunch. TPD Sgt. Christopher Corbitt’s testimony will continue after the break.
Assistant State Attorney Sarah Kathryn Dugan is picking up where she left off with her questioning of TPD Sgt. Christopher Corbitt yesterday.
Call records have pinpointed the hitmen and Katherine Magbanua at a rental car place picking up the car that the hitmen drove to Tallahassee to kill Dan Markel.
A citation was issued to Sigfredo Garcia, one of the hitmen who was driving the rental car, which was additional evidence that investigators used to track down Garcia.
Cell towers also picked up Garcia’s travel.
«As time progresses through the early morning hours until just afternoon, he continues to communicate with cell sites that would be consistent with travel from the Miami area to Tallahassee,» Corbitt said.
Calls were made between Donna Adelson and Charlie Adelson, Charlie and Magbanua and Magbanua and Garcia on the day that the hitmen traveled to Tallahassee but didn’t kill Markel.
Dugan presented a text message between Markel and Wendi Adelson where Wendi was asking about Markel’s whereabouts on July 14, 2014, through the 18th because she wanted to have the kids on the 16th.
«Those days encompass the rental car and the trip to Tallahassee, and ultimately, Mr. Markel’s death,» Corbitt said.
«Can you walk us through the cell phone evidence that morning?» Dugan asked, referring to July 18, 2014.
Corbitt testified that Donna and Charlie called each other at 1 a.m. that day, and then later in the morning, around 8 a.m., Donna calls Wendi.
He then played a voicemail Markel left for Wendi about his whereabouts the morning of his murder. Markel was hoping to talk to Wendi about the kids.
Wendi never called them back, but texted saying the plans he had in mind with the kids wouldn’t work. The two began to argue about the time Wendi would be able to pick up the kids.
Eventually, Wendi agreed to let Markel keep the kids longer, and an hour later he was killed.
«What can you tell us about Rivera and Garcia’s locations that morning?» Dugan asked.
«Mr. Garcia and Mr. Rivera are both consistent with them being in the area of Premier Health and Fitness,» Corbitt answered.
Premier Health and Fitness is the gym that Markel was at before he was shot. Garcia and Luis Rivera, the second hitman, trailed Markel the morning of the murder.
Dugan asked Corbitt to walk the jury through Wendi’s location on the morning of the killing.
That morning, Wendi called or received calls near Markel’s home. There was a road block as the investigation was going on, and other evidence points to Wendi encountering that roadblock.
TPD Officer Bill Brannon testified earlier in the trial that a van that drove past the area stood out to him.
«Did she attempt to call Dan Markel to make sure he or the kids were ok?» Dugan asked.
«She did not,» Corbitt answered.
«Did she attempt to call 911 or law enforcement to see what was going on since her children had been staying on that street?» Dugan asked.
«She did not,» Corbitt answered.
Magbanua is serving a life sentence in the Florida Department of Corrections for her intermediary role in the murder of Dan Markel. She was sentenced in 2022.
Magbanua admitted at the outset Aug. 26 that she was untruthful in previous trials.
She said she didn’t accept an immunity deal previously because the truth would have implicated the father of her children, Sigfredo Garcia, one of the hitmen in the murder. When she had a second chance, she again didn’t take it saying «she had been living a lie» and was fighting the truth.
She said that while dating Charlie she didn’t talk to Donna often, but knew that Charlie did.
Katherine Magbanua says she’s been ‘living a lie this whole time’
Katherine Magbanua testified that she lied to protect Sigfredo Garcia, who was convicted in the Dan Markel murder, from receiving the death penalty.
«Donna had conversations with Charlie, right? Charlie had conversations with you,» Assistant State Attorney Georgia Cappleman asked as she tapped her pen against an Adelson family tree.
«Charlie was the go-between between you and Donna wasn’t he? The same way you were the go-between between Charlie and Garcia?»
Magbanua responded with a series of «Yes, ma’ams»
On cross examination, defense attorney Jackie Fulford poked at her credibility, expressing disbelief in her testimony that she didn’t know how much she was paid by Charlie for the hit and never counted the money to determine «her cut.»
Wendi Adelson’s ex reveals ‘chilling’ hitman conversation
Jeffrey Lacasse testified that Wendi Adelson told him her brother, Charlie, looked into hiring a hitman to «take care of Danny Markel problem.»
Tuesday was a day of exes testifying in the Donna Adelson murder trial.
Jeffrey Lecasse, the man Wendi Adelson was dating before the murder, told the jury about a time Wendi confided in him that Charlie had looked into all possible options to “take care of the Danny Markel problem, including hiring a hitman.”
Hiring a hitman had been a running joke of Charlie’s, but this felt deadly serious to Lecasse.
“This I found chilling, I found disturbing − it made my stomach flip,” he said.
GAVEL-TO-GAVEL COVERAGE:
- The Tallahassee Democrat will livestream each day of the trial of Donna Adelson from the courthouse in Tallahassee. Watch on Tallahassee.com and the Tallahassee Democrat’s Facebook and YouTube pages.
- For best viewing experience: Download the Tallahassee Democrat app to watch and receive text alerts on when to watch – from opening arguments to the verdict.
