After years of suspicion, South Florida dentist charged in murder of FSU professor Dan Markel
Charlie Adelson, the South Florida dentist who has long been suspected of orchestrating the murder of Florida State University law professor Daniel Markel, has been jailed on a murder charge, records show.
Adelson, 44, was booked early Thursday into the Broward County Jail to await extradition to Tallahassee.
A grand-jury indictment shows he has been indicted in Leon County on charges of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder and solicitation to commit murder.
His arrest comes eight years after Markel — Adelson’s former brother-in-law — was gunned down inside his car at his Tallahassee home, a killing that has drawn national media attention, captivated the state’s capital and been featured on a bevy of news magazine shows and true-crime podcasts.
Markel had been in a bitter divorce with Charlie Adelson’s sister, Wendi Adelson, who later testified she had no knowledge of the plot to kill her ex. Police and prosecutors have long suspected that Adelson hired two Miami men and gang members, Sigfredo Garcia and Luis Rivera, to carry out the murder.
Prosecutors have said they believe Adelson financed the scheme to kill Markel, giving $100,000 in cash and gifts to the two hit men. The suggested motive: to end a court order and the emotional strain that had barred Wendi Adelson from relocating her children to South Florida after her divorce from Markel.
Read More: Who was Dan Markel, the FSU professor killed in a murder-for-hire plot?
Rivera cooperated with prosecutors and is doing 19 years for murder. Prosecutors convicted Garcia at trial in 2019; he got a life sentence. Jurors deadlocked on charges against his girlfriend, Katherine Magbanua, who is accused of taking part in the conspiracy. Her second trial is scheduled for May 16.
Leon County State Attorney Jack Campbell told the Tallahassee Democrat that the key new evidence was newly enhanced audio of a secretly recorded conversation between Magbanua and Adelson at a Miami restaurant in 2016.
The recording purports to capture the two discussing the case, months before any arrests were made. The discussion, which was raised at previous trials, was prompted by an event a day earlier. A day earlier, an undercover FBI agent, posing as a gang member and cohort of the hit men, had approached Adelson’s mother on the street.
“We’ve been able to hear things from the ... video that we weren’t able to hear until this most recent enhancement,” Campbell told the Democrat. “We’ve never stopped working it and we appreciate the efforts of all of our law enforcement partners.”
But defense lawyers for Magbanua and Adelson say the evidence isn’t new.
“Charlie is innocent and the prosecutors have no new information that led to this arrest,” Adelson’s defense attorney, David O. Markus, said in a statement Thursday morning. “The timing sure does stink, doesn’t it? On the eve of a long-awaited trial of Katie, this move has the smell of desperation.”
Magbanua’s defense lawyers, Christopher DeCoste and Tara Kawass, said the audio doesn’t depict either person discussing the murder itself.
“The government believes this is some ground-shaking bit of evidence,” Kawass said. “For us, it clearly shows Katherine is not guilty. At the end of the day, she is innocent.”
This story was originally published April 21, 2022 at 9:53 AM.