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Charlie Adelson (left) testifies at murder trial on Nov. 2, 2023, (right) murdered FSU law professor Dan Markel, the defendant’s former brother-in-law (Law&Crime Network)
Charlie Adelson took the stand at his trial Thursday morning and told a jury of his peers that he was “really nervous” but also innocent in murder-for-hire of his former brother-in-law Dan Markel, a prominent Florida State University law professor and scholar who was shot to death after he pulled into his driveway in the summer of 2014.
Prior to testimony, Adelson appeared nervous while sitting at a table next to his lawyers, stirring in his chair and fidgeting with his face and hair. Defense attorney Daniel Rashbaum cut to the chase after calling Adelson to the stand to testify in his own defense.
Asked whether he was involved in 41-year-old Dan Markel’s murder, Adelson answered “absolutely no.” Asked whether he hired anyone to kill Markel, the defendant replied, “no.”
Moments later, Adelson acknowledged that he was “really nervous.”
“Why?” Rashbaum asked.
“My whole life depends on it,” Adelson answered.
Adelson, now 47, is accused of being the mastermind behind the July 18, 2014 assassination and murder-for-hire of Dan Markel, a crime that has already resulted in murder convictions for three others — including Adelson’s ex-girlfriend Katherine Magbanua.
Magbanua, 38, testified Monday that she lied at her 2019 and 2022 trials when she said “I had nothing to do with” the murder-for-hire, a plot she said was first floated by Charlie Adelson.
The inmate testified that she didn’t know Dan Markel but 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, the father of her children and the convicted triggerman, could harm someone.
Sigfredo Garcia and Katherine Magbanua
“I never knew his name,” Magbanua said, only knowing Dan Markel as Wendi Adelson’s ex-husband who was involved in a heated child custody dispute.
During opening statements, prosecutors in the 2nd Judicial Circuit of Florida painted a picture of Charlie Adelson as a man with the means and motive to solve his “tight-knit” family’s “problem.” Prosecutors said that emails between Wendi Adelson and Donna Adelson, Charlie’s mother, showed that Donna “hated” Dan Markel and that she was “desperate to find a way” for her grandkids to relocate from Tallahassee to Miami.
“This murder was set into motion because, back in 2014, the defendant’s family — the Adelson family — had a big problem. And that big problem was Dan Markel. And the solution to that problem was this defendant,” prosecutor Sarah Dugan said of Charlie Adelson. “This defendant was the solution to that problem because he had a girlfriend with connections to the type of people who were willing and capable of pointing a gun at at a complete stranger and pulling the trigger.”
During the defense’s opening statements, attorney Daniel Rashbaum called the murder of Dan Markel a “tragedy,” “despicable,” “inexplicable,” and “evil.”
“The world lost a brilliant legal mind. His family lost a son and a brother. His community lost its sense of security and lost a good citizen,” the lawyer said. “And his two boys, the nephews of Charlie Adelson, lost a loving father.”
But Charlie Adelson “had nothing to do with the murder of professor Markel,” Rashbaum said, calling his client “innocent.”
“You will see that the state cannot come close to meeting its burden. Why? Because Charlie Adelson is innocent,” the defense lawyer told the jury. “Now, I don’t have to prove innocence. What I’m telling you I very rarely say in a courtroom as a defense lawyer. Charlie Adelson is innocent.”
Rashbaum emphasized that Markel’s killers are already incarcerated.
“They convicted them. Sigfredo Garcia convicted for life. Luis Rivera. Katherine Magbanua, convicted for life,” the lawyer said. “The problem is, as you just heard, the state saw no connection between these people and professor Markel.”
Rashbaum asserted that the state’s case was based on assumptions and guesses as to his client’s involvement.
The defense lawyer admitted that Charlie Adelson likes to talk — a lot — and that he had a history of telling bad jokes, but said that doesn’t make him a murder-for-hire mastermind.
“They heard things, they saw things, but there were problems. They couldn’t fit all of the pieces together,” Charlie Adelson’s lawyer said of investigators. “Respectfully, the state does not know what happened on July 18th, 2014.”
During his testimony on the stand, Charlie Adelson described Dan Markel as “very attentive to his sons.” Although the divorce fallout was “litigious,” his sister Wendi “never” said anything about threats of violence or domestic abuse.
“I felt bad for her. She was sad. No one goes to get married to get divorced,” Charlie said of Wendi filing for divorce, also noting that her six or so months of therapy with Dan Markel didn’t help.
Charlie Adelson said that he himself “wasn’t really involved with the divorce proceedings on the day to day stuff,” however.
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“I would definitely hear stories, most of which would come from my mom when I’d be driving to work in the morning or driving home,” Adelson said, estimating that 20-percent of what he heard came from Wendi and 80-percent of what he learned came from his mother’s venting.
Wendi was “extremely stressed, very stressed out” and his mother was “upset because my sister was stressed,” Adelson explained.
“It was almost like a telephone game, like my sister would vent to my mom and my mom would be venting to me,” he said.
Charlie Adelson claimed Thursday that he didn’t realize how much he himself likes to talk until he heard the tapes evidencing as much.
DOLCE VITA RECORDING – Charlie: “If they had any evidence, we would have already gone to the airport.” This recording is considered the smoking gun against #CharlieAdelson. Adelson met Katherine Magbanua at the Dolce Vita restaurant. Agents were at a table nearby, recording.… pic.twitter.com/JOVoD1bTYk
— Cathy Russon (@cathyrusson) October 26, 2023
Rashbaum asked whether Charlie Adelson discussed his parents’ willingness to make Dan Markel a million-dollar offer to move from Tallahassee to Miami.
Adelson acknowledged that he did discuss the million-dollar offer with Katherine Magbanua.
Magbanua, according to Adelson, asked if he needed to get a loan for that.
“I got cash, I can pay for it,” Adelson said.
Rashbaum then asked about a TV that Adelson got his sister Wendi and a “joke” that he repeatedly told about the TV being cheaper than hiring a hitman. Prosecutors called attention to the remarks in openings, saying, “A lot of people don’t like their in-laws, but the difference here is the defendant’s comment stopped being just a little bit of trash talk when Dan Markel was actually killed by a hitman.”
Defense opening: You’re going to hear a lot about TVs in this case. #CharlieAdelson has a really bad history of telling bad jokes. When Wendi left the house, his mom told him that she didn’t have a TV. He asked what he could do to help Wendi after she left #DanMarkel. Adelson…
— Cathy Russon (@cathyrusson) October 26, 2023
Charlie Adelson told the jury his mother Donna told him that when Wendi moved out of the “marital home” and into a new place she didn’t even have a TV.
“She needs a TV set for the house,” Donna said, according to Charlie.
Adelson said he’d pay for the TV if she went and purchased one at Best Buy.
After this, Rashbaum questioned Adelson about why he would have ever said anything about hiring a hitman. Adelson said it was a “complete joke” and suggested that Markel later being the victim of a murder-for-hire plot was a coincidence.
“When I gave her the TV set as a divorce present — stupidest thing I ever said in my life — and I said, ‘I was gonna get you a hitman, but the TV set was a lot cheaper so I went with the TV set instead.’ I said it as a complete joke and it was stupid but I do that a lot,” Adelson said.
“Did you make that joke to others?” Rashbaum followed up.
“Yes,” Adelson said.
“Did you make that joke many times throughout 2013 and 2014?” the lawyer asked.
“I made that joke when [Wendi] was having problems and she was fighting and she was upset,” the defendant answered. “I recycled the joke and it was stupid.”
“Did you ever say that joke to Katherine Magbanua?” Rashbaum asked.
“Yes, I did,” Adelson replied.
“Did you ever look into hiring a hitman?” the defense lawyer queried.
“No, never,” Adelson said.
On the stand, Charlie Adelson denied that Katherine Magbanua worked for him or his dad at the Adelson family’s dental practice, and he denied that he ever asked Magbanua whether she knew anyone who could do harm to Dan Markel.
Testimony paused briefly after 10 a.m. as Judge Stephen Everett asked the lawyers to approach the bench. After the break, the judge granted the state’s objection to certain texts that the defense insisted would go to Adelson’s “state of mind” around the time Sigfredo Garcia and Luis Rivera went to Tallahassee to follow Dan Markel.
Defense is not happy. Judge Everett will not allow them to entire the entirety of #CharlieAdelson‘s text messages from the time periods surrounding the two time Garcia/Rivera came to Tallahassee. Judge says defense can ask generally about the texts. Defense says it shows…
— Cathy Russon (@cathyrusson) November 2, 2023
