After the arrest in Miami, Donna Adelson was booked into a Leon prison to face charges in Markel’s murder
Donna Adelson, the fifth person arrested in the plot to kill Dan Markel, her former brother-in-law, has arrived in Tallahassee to face charges in the nearly decade-old killing.
Adelson, 73, who was being held in a Miami jail, was transferred Monday to the Leon County Detention Center, where she is being held without bail after spending a week at Miami-Dade’s Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center. She was booked early Tuesday, according to online jail records.
She was arrested on November 13 After she and her husband tried to fly out of Miami International Airport on one-way tickets to Vietnam, which does not have an extradition treaty with the United States.
Her attempt to fly This came one week after her son, Charlie Adelson, was convicted of Markle’s murder and less than 48 hours before a Leon County grand jury indicted her on charges of first-degree murder, conspiracy and solicitation.
Legal analysis: Adelson’s trip to Vietnam allows the state to discuss “consciousness of guilt” in Markel’s murder
After an eight-day trial in Leon County District Court, Charlie Adelson was found guilty on November 6 of the same three charges. He faces a mandatory life sentence for the killing of his former brother-in-law.
Markel, a 41-year-old law professor at Florida State University, was shot to death on July 18, 2014, in the garage of his Trescott Drive home. The murder occurred In the middle of a nasty legal battle Between him and his ex-wife Wendy AdelsonTheir two sons and other issues. Wendy Adelson, whose request to move with the children to Miami was denied by the judge, is the daughter of Donna Adelson and the younger sister of Charlie Adelson.
At the time of Donna Adelson’s arrest, law enforcement knew that she was considering running away. She and her son spoke several times after his trial via prison calls, and she was recorded mentioning the possibility of suicide or fleeing to a non-extradition country, according to arrest records.
In 2016, the FBI sent an undercover agent posing as a blackmailer to harass her outside her South Beach apartment and make the suspects talk over recorded lines. He handed her an article about Markel’s murder with his phone number and $5,000 written on it.
She has long been a target of both Tallahassee police and the FBI and featured heavily in her son’s trial and previous murder trials. Sigfredo Garciaone of the killers, and Katie MagbanuaThe mother of Garcia’s children, who was dating Charlie Adelson at the time of the murder.
Moments after this meeting It’s called a “bump” Donna Adelson called her son to tell him she got some “papers” and they needed to talk in person. She said it was a matter of “maybe it’s both of us.” So you probably have a general idea of what I’m talking about.
She also signed dozens of checks totaling $18,000 from the family’s dental practice that were presented to Magbanua over the months after the killing even though she never worked there.
The probable cause affidavit says Donna Adelson and her husband, Harvey Adelson, a retired dentist, spoke with the lead investigator for the Tallahassee Police Department at the local Markel Memorial in 2014 and promised to contact him before returning to South Florida to arrange an interview.
Financial picture: The Adelson family had “piles” of cash and millions in the bank when Dan Markel was murdered
“Harvey and Donna Adelson left Tallahassee with Wendy and the grandchildren the day after the memorial service without speaking with the investigator as promised,” court records say. “Since her departure, no one in the Adelson family has contacted TPD or inquired about the status of the investigation. In July of 2015, Wendy changed her children’s surname from Markelle to Adelson.”
Contact Jeff Burlew at jburlew@tallahassee.com or 850-599-2180.
This article originally appeared on the Tallahassee Democrat website: Donna Adelson was booked into a Tallahassee jail on charges of conspiracy to murder Dan Markel
