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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial
ARTICLE VIEW:
Matriarch’s murder-for-hire trial features her adult children, fellow
inmates and an undercover FBI agent as witnesses
By Lauren del Valle, Jean Casarez, CNN
Updated:
12:36 PM EDT, Sat August 30, 2025
Source: CNN
Prosecutors in Florida on Friday rested the state’s case against a
woman charged with orchestrating to kill her former son-in-law who was
tied up in a messy custody dispute with her daughter in 2014.
The trial of Donna Adelson comes more than a decade after , Dan Markel,
fatally shooting him in his Tallahassee garage.
Adelson, 75, faces life in prison if convicted of a first-degree murder
charge. She’s also charged with conspiracy and solicitation to commit
first-degree murder for Markel’s death.
Markel, 41, a Harvard law grad, was a prominent Florida State
University law professor who shared custody of his two toddlers with
his ex-wife, Wendi Adelson, in an ongoing custody dispute after their
messy 2013 divorce.
The televised trial has featured evidence from an FBI sting operation
and wiretapped phone calls and testimony from the defendant’s adult
children, jailhouse informants and alleged co-conspirators — elements
prosecutors say show Adelson was the mastermind of the murder-for-hire
plot that she helped fund and conspired with her son for years to cover
up.
Four other co-conspirators, Charles Adelson, have already been
convicted in the scheme that prosecutors allege the “domineering”
matriarch put in motion.
Attorneys for Donna Adelson have said at trial that there’s no direct
evidence proving that she actually planned the contract kill or helped
fund it. They also said her son paid the hit men himself.
The judge didn’t push Adelson’s attorneys Friday to detail her
defense case after prosecutors rested but her attorney indicated in a
recent pretrial hearing that she would take the stand. Charles Adelson
was not among the two dozen witnesses called by the state. It’s
unclear if his mother’s attorneys will call him in her defense case.
The two hit men who carried out the killing were arrested in 2016, but
it took years and the sting operation encircling the Adelson family
before Charles Adelson was arrested in 2022.
Donna Adelson wasn’t charged until after Charles’ conviction in
November 2023, arrested at the Miami Airport as she attempted to leave
the country with a one-way ticket to Vietnam.
, who the son was dating in 2014, ultimately was convicted in 2022 for
her role in facilitating the murder plot. Her children’s father, ,
was convicted of killing Markel. He had help from his longtime friend ,
a known Latin Kings gang member, who took a plea deal in 2016 and
ultimately helped law enforcement tie Garcia, Magbanua and Charles
Adelson to the crime.
Rivera testified at Donna Adelson’s trial about his cooperation with
investigators which got him a more lenient sentence. Rivera said he
knew Markel’s death was arranged to help Wendi get custody of her
kids, but said he didn’t know who Donna was.
The jury saw records suggesting that Adelson, who lived with her
husband in a luxury Miami condo, had the means to fund the murder plot
that cost over $100,000 with their son, who worked with them at the
family’s thriving dentistry practice.
Prosecutors showed extensive communications between mother and son
illustrating their close relationship and how Donna kept track of
things for Charles, who in turn solved all kinds of problems for her.
The jury saw how they spoke at length about Wendi’s divorce before
Markel’s death.
Daughter, eldest son testify for prosecution
In 2013, after the divorce was finalized, Wendi Adelson, an attorney
herself, hoped to relocate her sons to South Florida to be near her
brother and parents. But a judge barred her from moving the kids away
from Markel, who was based in Tallahassee, according to divorce records
reviewed at trial.
Emails between Donna and Wendi showed how she pushed Wendi to pursue
relocation to South Florida at any cost, including taunting her
ex-husband with the possibility of converting their kids from Judaism
to Catholicism, according to records put in evidence at Charles’
trial.
In emails around the time of the divorce, Donna Adelson suggested that
Wendi offer her ex-husband $1 million to let the kids relocate. Donna
said she’d split the cost with Wendi and Charles, who was also
willing to chip in, according to the records.
Wendi testified at her mother’s trial that she never offered Markel
the money, nor did her family, as far as she knew.
At her mother’s trial last week, Wendi Adelson testified that she
hasn’t spoken to her mother since November 2023, around the time
Donna Adelson was arrested. She testified that in October of that year
her mother had encouraged her to testify in a way that would help her
brother at his trial. Donna was upset with how her daughter testified,
feeling like Wendi’s testimony wasn’t helpful to her brother, Wendi
testified.
Prosecutor Georgia Cappleman questioned Wendi about things she said in
her first interview with law enforcement hours after Markel was shot.
Wendi confirmed that she initially told investigators that she was
concerned she’d be a suspect and also named her brother as someone
who might be angry enough to harm Markel. Wendi also named her parents
on that list but told investigators at the time she didn’t think they
were capable of something like that.
Wendi several times denied having any involvement in or knowledge about
a plot to kill her ex-husband.
When the prosecutors asked Wendi what information she had about her
mother’s involvement in a plot to kill Markel, Wendi testified, “I
don’t have any information.”
Wendi and her father have not been charged in connection with
Markel’s murder.
In her final question on cross-examination, Donna Adelson’s attorney
asked Wendi to confirm that anyone who was involved in Markel’s
killing should be held responsible — including her.
“You testified on direct that anybody in your family that had
anything to do with it should be held responsible, isn’t that
correct?”
“Yes,” Wendi Adelson said.
“And that includes you, doesn’t it?”
“Anyone, anyone who’s responsible,” Wendi responded.
Donna Adelson’s eldest son, Rob Adelson, testified that he’s been
estranged from his mother since 2016, around the time law enforcement
arrested the gunmen who killed Markel.
Rob described the moment his mother told him Markel had been killed,
calling it “one of those moments you’ll just remember forever.”
On that phone call Donna Adelson said Markel had been shot and later
died of his injuries. She also said she’d been told, “Someone went
to the front door and said, ‘Are you Dan Markel?’ and then shot
him.”
He responded to his mother at the time, “Well, how could you know
that?”
She said, “Well, that’s just what they’re telling us.”
On the stand, Rob Adelson testified, “That story bothered me a lot
because there’s only one way you could hear that story.”
Rob also said his mother warned him not to cooperate with law
enforcement, and when he said he’d been interviewed by the FBI, Donna
said, “Well, you don’t know anything anyway.”
He testified that Markel’s death was not a topic for discussion with
his family in the following years and Donna once said, “I don’t
know and I don’t care. It doesn’t concern me.”
The last straw for Rob was in May 2016. He recalled feeling it was odd
that he didn’t hear from his parents about the arrest of Garcia, one
of the hit men.
When his mother called him for his wedding anniversary that happened to
be two days after the arrest, Rob testified that he had to bring it up.
And when he did, Rob said he repeated it three times, “They made an
arrest. They got the guy who killed Danny.”
Donna didn’t acknowledge the news and abruptly said she had to go and
hung up, Rob testified. Rob said he hasn’t spoken to his mother
since.
Sting operations and wiretaps
Katherine Magbanua, sitting on the witness stand in chains and an
orange jumpsuit, told the jury that she believed Charles ferried
information to his mother about the murder plot though he never
explicitly said as much to her. She said that many times before the
murder when Charles would discuss the arrangement with her, he would
step away to call his mom.
Magbanua went to Charles Adelson’s house the night of the murder to
get the money for herself and the two hit men, she testified. Charles
told her at the time that his parents had just left his house. He also
told her that the money was damp and moldy because his mother
physically washed the money, Magbanua testified.
The night of the murder in July 2014, text message records show Donna
Adelson texted her son, “outside your house.” Cell tower data
submitted as evidence also suggested Adelson could’ve been driving in
the area.
About three months after Markel’s murder, Magbanua testified that she
began receiving paychecks from the Adelson Institute for Aesthetics &
Implant Dentistry and that Charles would hand deliver them to her,
usually several at one time, and Donna had always signed them.
Magbanua never actually worked for the family dental practice, she
said, but received 44 checks until April 2016, around the time the FBI
conducted an undercover operation to gather evidence against the
Adelson family.
The jury also heard from an undercover FBI agent who described
approaching Donna Adelson on the street in April 2016 purporting to
threaten her with information about the murder-for-hire plot on behalf
of Rivera, who was already in prison for another crime.
On a wiretapped phone line, Donna immediately called her son upset
about the confrontation, telling him discreetly that they needed to
meet in person to discuss the details, but said someone approached her
with “paperwork” that probably involved both of them.
Magbanua testified that after the undercover agent approached Donna,
Charles called her frantically about the situation even though they’d
been long broken up. They spoke on the phone in code about the
situation and met up several times as the agent followed up with Donna
in a mailed letter and by phone and text message, text message records,
recorded phone calls and surveilled meetings showed.
The jury also heard Magbanua on recorded calls enlist Garcia to look
into the purported threat seemingly linked to the other hit man.
Eventually Donna personally called the undercover agent back,
repeatedly insisting that she didn’t know anything about Markel’s
murder.
“I know I lost my ex son-in-law. I did not have anything to do with
this,” she said.
The agent, keeping up the ruse, continued to push her on the phone for
several minutes.
She continued to deny any involvement. “That’s the problem. It’s
not me. I have had a year of aggravation, a year and a half of
aggravation over this. My daughter, my grandchildren. It is not me.”
Jailhouse informants take stand
Two women who were incarcerated with both Adelson and Magbanua
testified Friday that Donna admitted to them she committed the crimes
she’s accused of and promised to compensate them if they testified
about Magbanua to help Adelson’s case.
Both women testified they instead opted to tell prosecutors about their
interactions with Adelson and acknowledged they could get a break in
their own prosecutions for their cooperation.
Patricia Byrd testified that when she slept near Adelson for several
months in jail, she asked Donna if she did it.
“She said she did; it was to keep her grandkids but it wasn’t
supposed to go that far,” Byrd said.
Adelson also promised her fellow inmate a tract of land and a trailer
and to “have her husband fix my teeth” if she testified that
Magbanua was extorting the Adelson family.
“She wanted me to say that Magbanua told me, ‘When we killed him, I
knew my boyfriend’s parents had money.’”
Drina Bernhardt, another inmate confined with Adelson, testified that
Donna called her “her jail daughter” and spoke often about the
case, promising her $10,000 if she’d testify about Magbanua’s
alleged extortion plot.
Bernhardt gave law enforcement her notebook containing a lengthy script
Adelson penned for Bernhardt to study. The script wove a detailed
narrative of Magbanua’s scheme to extort the Adelson family that she
divulged to Bernhardt while they were incarcerated together.
An investigator later testified that the story Donna wanted Bernhardt
to tell was consistent with claims Charles Adelson made when he
testified in his own trial that Magbanua and the hit men were extorting
him for years, threatening to hurt him and his parents if they didn’t
pay them over $300,000.
A crime lab analyst testified that a forensic document examination
confirmed that Adelson wrote the script. Donna Adelson’s attorney
said the defense never contested that Donna wrote it.
The defense team poked holes in the women’s stories, pointing out
inconsistencies in their prior statements, attacked their credibility
and highlighted the leniency they stand to gain from cooperating
against Adelson.
The defense is scheduled to start its case Tuesday.
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