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Katherine Magbanua, Charlie Adelson pictured on Oct. 30, 2023 at Adelson’s trial in the murder of Dan Markel (Law&Crime Network)
An ex-girlfriend of Charlie Adelson swore Monday to tell the truth before she admitted that she perjured herself in both of her trials in the 2014 murder of Florida State University law professor Dan Markel, now that she is serving a life sentence behind bars.
Katherine Magbanua, a 38-year-old inmate who once worked at the Adelson family’s dental practice, took the stand and said “No, ma’am, I was not” when responding to Chief Assistant State Attorney Georgia Cappleman about whether she was truthful with both sets of jurors, whether the hung jury of 2019 or the one the jury that sealed her fate in 2022.
Magbanua explained Monday that her defense in those trials was “that I had nothing to do with it,” it being the murder of 41-year-old Dan Markel, the former brother-in-law of Charlie Adelson — who is currently on trial as the alleged mastermind of the murder-for-hire plot.
“Were you in the middle?” Magbanua was asked about her involvement.
“Yes, ma’am, I was,” the inmate replied, before confirming she also lied when she said at her first trial that convicted triggerman Sigfredo Garcia, the father of her children, had nothing to do with Markel’s murder.
“So why tell the truth now?” Magbanua was asked.
“I believe that the truth needed to come out now so that the family can get some type of closure,” Magbanua answered.
“Why didn’t the truth need to come out last year or the year before or the year before that?” Cappleman followed up.
“I was trying to defend myself,” Magbanua answered.
Katherine Magbanua, Charlie Adelson pictured together in a trial exhibit. (Law&Crime Network)
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“You were trying to get off,” the prosecutor shot back.
“Yes, ma’am,” Magbanua admitted, also testifying that Charlie Adelson did not threaten her to remain silent about what she knew at her trials.
The witness for the state said that no promises were made in exchange for the perjury admissions. Magbanua said that she lied because she thought she’d be acquitted.
The inmate testified that she didn’t know Dan Markel, didn’t have a personal beef with him, and that the motivation behind her involvement in the murder was two-fold: financial and as a favor to Charlie Adelson, her former boyfriend whom she met in 2013.
Charlie Adelson came up with the idea to kill Dan Markel and first suggested moving forward with violence while the two were leaving a Halloween party in 2013, Magbanua testified.
“Do you know anybody that can harm someone?” Charlie Adelson asked, according to Magbanua.
Magbanua said she knew Sigfredo Garcia could harm someone.
It wasn’t until her trial or when Sigfredo Garcia was arrested that she learned Dan Markel’s name, Magbanua claimed.
“I never knew his name,” Magbanua said, only knowing Dan Markel as Wendi Adelson’s husband who was embroiled in a child custody dispute and acrimonious divorce.
Day three of testimony in Charlie Adelson’s trial is ongoing.
