Dan Markel Murder: Accused Mastermind's Attorney Says Hit-Man Comments Were Just "Bad Jokes"

During opening statements in the murder trial of Charlie Adelson, his defense attorney, Daniel Rashbaum, told the jury Adelson was a big talker with a history of telling bad jokes and constantly repeating them. The Miami-based attorney said that when Adelson commented about hiring a hit man to kill his sister's ex-husband, it was all in jest.

"Not only was it a bad joke, but you are going to hear that he repeated the joke, repeated it to a lot of people," Rashbaum said. "You are going to hear that he repeated it as late as March 2014."

Adelson is accused of orchestrating the murder-for-hire plot to kill Florida State University law professor Dan Markel, who was entangled in a bitter child custody dispute with Adelson's sister Wendi.

Prosecutors claim the 46-year-old Broward County dentist enlisted two hit men to kill Markel in 2014 so Wendi could relocate to South Florida with her two young sons. Before the murder, the judge struck down a request for Wendi to move to Miami with the children, a decision that vexed the Adelson family. At one point, Wendi would later tell police, Adelson joked that buying a TV for her divorce present would be cheaper than hiring a hit man to snuff out Markel.

In the aftermath of the murder, the case gripped the nation as police scrambled for answers as to why a respected attorney and professor would be gunned down in his Tallahassee garage with no signs of a robbery. After nearly two years of little-to-no movement in the case, police zeroed in on the hit men, both of whom have since been convicted of the murder.

As he proclaimed his client's innocence in his October 26 opening statement, Rashbaum argued Adelson's onetime girlfriend, Katherine Magbanua, was the real mastermind behind the plot. He said Adelson often repeated the "hit man" joke and previously told her about how his parents, Donna and Harvey Adelson, were willing to offer a million dollars to Markel to move to Miami and commute to Tallahassee.

"You will learn that Katie heard about the million-dollar offer and got some ideas in her head," Rashbaum said. "The state has called Katherine Magbuana the mastermind, and that's exactly what she was."

The defense claimed a seemingly frantic Magbanua met with Adelson the night after the murder and told him that a friend of hers — whose name she did not reveal — shot the professor as part of an extortion plot against the Adelson family.

"She said she had nothing to do with it," Rashbaum said. "She was talking too much. Her friends learned about the problem that his family was having with Professor Markel. They learned about the million-dollar offer. They got it in their minds to do this. As you can imagine, his life has forever been altered. You will hear in detail what happened that night. You will learn that Charlie was told if he didn't pay within the next 48 hours, he or one of his family members would be next."

Prosecutors presented a decidedly different explanation for the murder of the prominent professor.

Assistant State Attorney Sarah Dugan described a desperate family willing to do anything to get their daughter and grandchildren back to South Florida.

"Back in 2014, the Adelson family had a big problem," Dugan told the jury. "That big problem was Dan Markel and the solution to that problem was this defendant because he had a girlfriend with connections to the type of people who are willing and capable of pointing a gun at a stranger and pulling the trigger."

Dugan said Adelson's mother hated Markel and constantly vented about Wendi's custody issues to Adelson, whom Dugan called her "closest confidant." The state said the judge's motion prevented Wendi from moving to Miami with her three-year-old and four-year-old sons unless "something happened to Markel."

"She and the defendant talked multiple times a day, every day," Dugan added. "The defendant was the person that Donna Adelson relied on to solve her problems, and this was a big, big problem for Donna Adelson. She made it the defendant's problem to solve."

According to prosecutors, Markel had filed a motion to prevent his mother-in-law "from having unsupervised contact with her grandchildren" after she allegedly made disparaging comments about him to the children. That motion was still pending when Markel was killed, Dugan noted.

"The murder of Dan Markel ensured that an adverse ruling on his motion would never be a problem for the Adelsons," Dugan contended.

The prosecutor told the jury the paper trail led investigators to Adelson, who had access to a large reserve of funds as a successful periodontist. Dugan said Magbanua and the two hit men — Luis Rivera and Sigfredo Garcia —  scored "big ticket" items around the time of the murder. Magbanua got breast augmentation surgery and received Harvey Adelson's old Lexus sedan, while Garcia and Rivera bought motorcycles and cars following the murder, according to the prosecutor.

"Bank records also showed that Katherine Magbanua's account had a huge spike in cash deposits right around the time of the murder," Dugan said. "She deposited more money into her account in the five weeks following the murder than the entire previous year before the murder. This was during a time when there was no record of her being employed anywhere."

In the days after the murder, Dugan said, Wendi and her two sons relocated to Miami. Within months, she legally changed her sons' last names from Markel to Adelson.

"Just like that, their father was just effectively erased from their lives," the prosecutor added. "The Adelson family's big problem had been solved."