Summer Series 2024: Dan Markel Part 3: The trial of Charlie Adelson

Welcome to Primetime Crime twenty twenty fourth summer series. We are going to talk right now in true crime, and then together we are going to unravel the mysterious death of attorney and law professor Dan Markel, the circumstances surrounding his death, and those responsible. Let's dive right in. Hey, guys, welcome back to Primetime Crime. It's Kylie. We are going to jump into right now in true crime. Of course, I'm going to start things off by talking about the latest in the Micah Miller case. So there was a text thread that JP John Paul Miller, Micah's husband, had with Micah's siblings, and this guy had the nerve to text This is alleged. I mean, I assume it's probably actual fact, but I'm saying it's alleged because I don't have proof that this is really a conversation that happened between John Paul Miller and the family of Micah MICA's siblings. But this is what the text message said. This is from John Paul. This is what happens when you try to encourage someone to divorce the person they love and tell them they don't need medicine and tell them that they're not ill when they are good job Francis family, and Sierra Francis, who I assume is Micah's sister, says some expletives to him, as she should and says, you are the reason our sister is dead, which I think is so powerful because no matter how this whole thing came to be, Micah was driven to make a decision ultimately to end her life. At least if that's the direction that we're going. Her family does not think that she ended her own life, and I honestly think that they have brought forth enough evidence of things leading up to her death that kind of prove that she was making plans for the future and she wouldn't have taken her own life. However, law enforcement is laying out this whole thing that she did take her own life, but I know that they are continuing to look into things. It just all doesn't add up for me, because she was making those plans for the future and it's just so odd. But either way, regardless if she took her own life, if she didn't take her own life, if she did take her own life, he drove her to that because he is a master manipulator, narcissist, horrible human, the worst human, and he deserves to be exposed for the kind of monster that he is. So, like I said, I will continue to keep you guys updated on this whole thing, and it's going to be really interesting to see what happens with this in the coming weeks. I do know that he was let go of the church that he was the pastor at, and I think that that was a pretty obvious move. They had to because they were actively on social media deleting any negative comments in any negative reviews, and a company that faces backlash like that, they really have no choice but to let the person go to stop the madness, although I don't think it's going to stop because the Internet has no chill. But like I said, I will continue to keep you guys updated on the madness that is the Mike and Miller case. Moving along to another case that is also maddening, Riley Strain. The toxicology results are back, however, they have not released to the public yet. The family has hired counsel. So I am going to be so interested to see what was in Riley's system when he died, because he had told his mother that one of those drinks tasted like barbecue, and I don't know if he drink it or not, like did he in just the whole thing, We really don't know. But he was fall over drunk, and it wasn't just a normal like fallover drunk. It was like a little bit more. In my opinion, like I have my own theories about what happened to Riley that night. I think Broadway has some really bad juju and energy and I don't trust it. It's just like I don't trust Sixth Street in Austin. I just don't trust it. I feel like there's some bad vibes going on there. Bad people, bad vibes, stayed away from it. I don't think it's safe. So we will of course be keeping up to date on that, and I will continue to keep you guys updated on what's going on there. Third thing we have to talk about it dropped yesterday TMZ alert. Lori Beth Deunberg, who was a star on All That back in the day, has come out and accused Dan Schneider the Rific Human, that he is allegedly of sexual misconduct. And let me just tell you that I was waiting for Lori Beth during the quiet on set documentary, I said to myself, where is Lori Beth. We need to hear from her. I know that things probably weren't great for her. I need to know. I need to know Lori Beth's side of the story. And yesterday was the day that it officially came out. So she said that when she was nineteen years old, she was on of course, all that Dan Schneider would show her pornography and also would initiate phone sex with her. And this was all, like I said, after her nineteenth birthday, so she was of legal age. But still he's a predator and we're not surprised by this at all, not at all surprised. And then she said that their relationship ended up turning more sexual in nature. He was having sleepovers at his house and they would give each other massages and watch porn. And we're not really surprised by the massage thing because he was having literal children massages shoulders on the set of the shows that he worked on. And I don't know, it's just extremely specific and detailed, and I don't think she is I know she's not lying about this. We know Dan Schneider is an absolute horrific monster of a human, and we're not shocked by this. But he of course is denying it, because he's a horrific human. Of course he's going to deny it. And he said that these statements are false, and he went on to stay as I had previously stated, there were times, particularly in the early years of my career, that I made mistakes and exhibited poor judgment as a leader. If I did that with respect to Lorie Beth, I sincerely apologize to her. But I cannot apologize for things I did not do. He literally makes me want to vomit. I cannot with this guy. He is horrific. He has been horrific for a long time. People have talked about this man for a long time, and it's finally all coming to light. I've been blowing the whistle on Dan Schneider since twenty eleven, and the fact that it's finally all coming to light after all of this time, I'm so glad that it's coming to light. But it's also very frustrating because I know what people out there are thinking and saying. Why did it take them so long to come out, Why are they just now saying it. Why didn't they say something sooner, and those are the people that have zero idea what the cycle of abuse is like and what the shame of sexual, emotional, financial, any type of abuse like that is to someone, especially when we're talking about literal children. These people were children when this happened, and that's a lot to reconcile with. As you get older and you grow up in the entertainment industry and you're trying to navigate it, it is a lot to come to terms with. And it could very well be that after years and years and years of therapy, Lorie Beth is finally realizing what happened to her and the impact that it had on her and how wrong it was. And maybe seeing the Quiet Onset documentary kind of sparked a few things. When people go through traumatic things, especially at a young age, they tend to compartmentalize their brains and their bodies kind of put it to a back burner, almost like they forget about it until something triggers that memory and then they realize, oh my god, I'm a victim too. And at this point, I think we just have to sit back and wait, because I do feel like there's going to be more people coming out of the woodworks to continue to make allegations against Dan Schneider, and I think it's going to be really interesting to watch it all unfold. And I think it's interesting watching him try to claw his way out of it because there are so many people who are saying that he did these awful things, not just the kids that he worked with, but the people that were on his writer's staff, like a bunch of people he worked with, colleagues alike, all said female that this guy was a creeper. And if you look at the male cast of people that he dealt with, they don't really say much about him. They say, you know, he was supportive, he was nice. Drake Bell even said in his part of the interview he did for Quiet on set about his sexual assault that he received at the hands of another horrific human, Brian Peck, that Dan Schneider was very helpful and supportive of him. But it's also I think because Dan Schneider targeted young women, and that is what predators do. They target people who are younger than them. They have a higher level of authority over them, and they can manipulate and groom and do whatever they want to get them to follow whatever they want them to do, and it is truly sick and it's horrible, and we're never going to stop talking about it until Dan gets what he deserves, because I truly think that he is a predator and he has gotten away with it for far too long, allegedly in my opinion, that is what I think. And with all of that, we are going to go ahead and wrap up right now in True Crime and get started with today's episode. Okay, guys, we are jumping in to part three of the summer series twenty twenty four, Dan Markel the trial of Charlie Adelson, which took place starting Monday, October twenty third of twenty twenty three. The trial was actually set to start in April of twenty twenty three, but a judge pushed it back, and basically the reason that they pushed it back is because Charlie Adelson's attorney had requested that the date be moved because they didn't feel like they had enough time to prepare and to review the material because there was previous trials with the different people that were involved in this alleged murder for hire, so they wanted to be able to review the files of that and review the different wiretaps that had been done, which we are going to talk about. So ultimately, the trial began on Monday, October twenty third. The judge is named Stephen Everett, and the trial would take place in Leon County, Tallahassee, Florida. And the judge kind of did a brief summary of the case, and I'm going to read that to you now. On July eighteenth, twenty fourteen, FSU College of Law professor Dan Markel was shot while seated in his car. This happened in the driveway of Markell's home on Trescott Drive in the bit Benton Hill's neighborhood. The killers traveled to Tennessee from Miami to commit the murder and a rented silver green colored Prius. The defendant, an alleged conspirator in this murder, was a former brother in law of Dan Markel and has entered a plea of not guilty. They selected twelve jurors and three alternates. There was eight men and seven women who were going to be seated during the trial. And now we are getting in to opening statements from the prosecution team and the defense team. So Charlie Adelson was represented by Daniel Rashbaum. We were going to talk a lot about him in the coming episodes, for sure, but I do want to start off by playing you the prosecution's opening statements. It really sets the scene for why we're here. And this happened in twenty fourteen, and it's almost ten years later and it's finally going to trial because it did take them a long time to kind of put the pieces together and come to this conclusion. So I'm going to play the opening statements. I may pause here and there so I can kind of add a couple things potentially, but we are going to listen to the opening statements from the prosecution in the Charlie Adelson trial right to it. The reason that we're here today is because the defendant in this case, Charlie Adelson, hired a hit man to kill his former brother in law, Dan Markel. This murder was set into motion because back in twenty fourteen, the defendant's family, the Adolson family, had a big problem, and that big problem was Dan Markel, and the solution to that problem was this defendant. 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 a complete stranger and pulling the trigger. The victim in this case was known as Danny to his friends and family. He was a loving father to two little boys. He was a highly respected professor at Florida State College of Law, and tragically, on July eighteenth of twenty fourteen, Dan Markel was shot twice in the head in broad daylight in the driveway of his home in the Benton Hills neighborhood here in Tallahassee. The last day of Dan Markel's life. That day began like any other of his mornings that summer. He woke up, he drove his two little boys to preschool and dropped them off, and then he drove over to the gym to work out. After finishing his workout, he returned home. He pulled in his driveway, opened his garage. But little did he know that throughout his just normal routine that morning, he was being followed. He was being followed by two hired hitmen who traveled all the way from from Miami to Tallahassee for the sole purpose of murdering him. And just like something out of a horror movie, he pulls into his driveway in the car that, unknown to him, pulls in right behind him. Moments later, dan Markel's neighbor heard a gunshot. He looked out the window and he saw a light colored Toyota Prius backing quickly out of dan Markell's driveway and then speeding away. The neighbor waited for a couple minutes to see if maybe Dan Markell came out of his house or backed out of his driveway too, and when nothing happened, this neighbor got that funny feeling that maybe something could be wrong here, so he walked over and what he found was a gruesome scene. He walked in the garage and saw that the driver's side window of Dan Markell's car was shattered. He saw Dan Markel was still behind the wheel with He was alive, but he was moaning. He was unresponsive, and he was terribly injured. The neighbor then goes and calls nine one one. Law enforcement arrives and they find Dan Markel unresponsive with gunshot ones to his head. He was then taken to the hospital, where he survived for several hours before he was actually pronounced dead. Dan Markell was forty one years old, and his little boys that were deprived of their father that day were three and four years old. Law enforcement immediately began to investigate to figure out who shot Dan Markel, and the evidence they find sets them down two separate paths. One path is that they had to track down that light colored prius that the neighbors saftly and from the crime scene and identify who was inside that prius. And the other path relates to Dan Markell's personal life. They look to see who, if anybody, in Dan Markell's personal life would hate Dan Markell enough to kill him. And after years of tireless investigation by law enforcement, both of these two paths led directly to this defendant. So let's talk about the path involving Dan Markell's personal life first and looking at who might have a motive to kill Dan Markell, law enforcement learned that Markel was entangled in a very nasty divorce with his ex wife, who is the defendant's sister and her name is Wendy Adelson. A review of their divorce case file revealed that Wendy Adelson asked the court to allow her to move back to Miami, where she was from with the kids in order to be near her parents, whose names are Harvey and Donna Adelson, and her brother. The defendant, Dan Marcel was adamantly opposed to his children being relocated to Miami. He was a law professor here in Tallahassee. This is where he lived, This is where his kids have been raised. He wanted his kids to live here with him. And for this custody dispute, the judge ended up ruling in Dan Markell's favor, so Wendy Aedelson was not permitted to move to Miami with the children, unless, of course, something happened to Dan Markll. A review of Wendy Aedelson's emails revealed that her mother, Donna Adelson hated Dan Markel and was desperate to find a way for Wendy and her children, who were Donna Aedelson's grandchildren, to be able to move to Miami. Donna Aedelson suggests in these emails that y'all will hear about several ways that Wendy Adelson could threaten or bully Dan Markel into submission into getting what she wanted him to do. Donna Aedelson even suggested offering Dan Markell a one million dollars bar to allow the relocation and even said that this defendant, Charlie Adelson, would pay a third of that million dollar bride to Dan Markel to make that happen. The evidence in this case will show that Donna Adelson's closest confidant was her son, the defendant. She and the defendant talked multiple times a day every day. He was the person with whom she would constantly vent and complain to about Wendy's situation. The defendant was also the person that Donna Adelson relied on to solve her problems. And this was a big, big problem for Donna Adelson, and she made it the defendants problem to solve. So the divorce between Wendy Adelson and Dan Markel was final about a year before the actual murder, but that was not the end of that case. Litigation was on going, to say the least, each side would continue to routinely file violations of the custody agreement, violations of the settlement agreement, and that continued right up until Dan Markell's death in July of twenty fourteen. This was a highly emotionally charged situation between them leading up to his death. However, there was no physical violence that Wendy Adelson needed to be rescued from or anything like that. But make no mistake, this was a very messy custody dispute. Shortly before the murder. In fact, Dan Markell, the victim, filed with the court and basically asked the court. He alleged that Donna Adelson was disparaging him to his children by saying bad things about him, and he asked the court to enter in order preventing Donna Adelson from having unsupervised contact with her grandchildren. This motion was still pending in court when Dan Markell was killed. The murder of Dan Markel ensured that an adverse ruling on his motion would never be a problem for the Adolsons, and just about forty eight hours after the shooting, Wendy Adelson and the little boys relocated to Miami. Shortly thereafter moved into a home within walking distance of the Adelson's Miami home. Within a year of Dan Markell's murder, Wendy Aedelson legally changed Dan Marquel's son's last name from Markel to Adelson, and just like that, their father was just effectively erased from their lives. At three and four, and the Adelson's family, their big problem had been solved. You'll hear during this trial that the Adelson's are a very tight knit family. The defendant and his parents, Harvey and Donna Adelson, they actually even all worked together or worked together at the Adelson Institute, which was their family's dental practice. At the Adelson Institute, the defendant and Harvey Adelson were dentists and Donna Adelson managed the office. After Dan Marquel was killed on July eighteenth, twenty fourteen, law enforcement interviewed Wendy Aedelson, and Wendy Aedelson acknowledged that her family had a motive to kill Dan Markel or to want him dead. She admitted that her brother, the defendant, had even said that he looked into hiring a hit man to kill Dan Markel as a divorce present to her, but he decided to buy her in TV instead because it was cheaper and coincidentally or not that TV that this defendant bought his sister as a divorce gift instead of hiring a hit man would be Wendy Aedelson's alibi for the mourning of the murder. When the defendant or when the victim was killed by a hit man so this path of looking into Dan Markell's life to see who would have a motive to want him dead leads law enforcement to the Adelsons, including this defendant, a man who told his family that he'd looked into hiring a hit man to kill Dan Markell. The defense as yesterday in jury selection, you know who's top trash or heard somebody talk trash about an in law, which is not a rare concept. A lot of people don't like their in laws. But the difference here is that the defendants comment stopped being just a little bit of trash talk when Dan Markell was actually killed by a hitman. While the police are trying to investigate you know who in Dan Markell's personal life may have a motive to kill him, they're simultaneously going down that second path I described to y'all, which was tracking down the vehicle that the neighbors saw fleeing the crime scene. When law enforcement retrace Dan Markeelle's steps the morning of the murder, they uncovered some chilling surveillance video of a fitting the description of the one seen by the neighbor following Dan Markel into the Premier Gym parking lot, waiting for an hour while he was inside, and then following him home from Premiere Jim back to his neighborhood. They got the surveillance images from city buses, from Premiere, from everywhere they possibly could, and these surveillance images, coupled with a massive amount of phone data and sun pass records gathered in this case, helped police to eventually track down the exact car used in this crime. But police still had to figure out who was in the Prius and why did they kill Dan Marquel as part of this really painstaking review that law enforcement did of all of these records. And when I say painstaking, finding this prius and finding this these all of this evidence in all of these records was not an easy task and it took longer than your average investigation. It was very difficult to do. They combed through tons of phone records and even did what's called a tower dump, which is where law enforcement collected a list of all of the cell phone numbers that communicated with the cell tower that serviced different spots in Tallahassee that Dan Markel was at that morning, including Premier Jim when the suspects Prius were there. Because they thought if the person in the prius was using their phone at the time, then their number will be somewhere in this tower dump. They combed through all of that data and they found a number with a Miami area code belonging to a man named Sigfreeda Garcia. Law enforcement examined all of Garcia's call logs and saw that he was in frequent con intact with another number that was also present at Premiere Gym that morning, and that number belonged to a man named Louis Rivera. Louis Rivera is a lifelong friend of Sigfredo Garcia and is also from Miami. Police then looked at all of Garcia and Rivera's phone records, which showed that their phones left Miami about two two days before this murder on July sixteenth of twenty fourteen. The phones came to Tallahassee, and on the day of the murder July eighteenth, they followed Markel to Premiere Jim. The phone data is consistent with both men turning off their phones just minutes before the murder and leaving their phones off until about an hour or so after the murder, when they're well on their way back towards Miami and then a bank's ATM camera caught both Garcia and Rivera in that light colored Prius once they arrived back in the Miami area when they stopped at an ATM, So funny, police figured out the identity and this should appear on the screens in front of front of you, the identity of the two men responsible for following and killing Dan Markel Louis Rivera his nickname is Toto, and Sifrana Garcia his nickname is Tudo. But they continued to look for evidence of why this Why too seemingly random men came all the way to Tallahassee to kill man Dan Marquel that they've never met. You know what or who is the connection between these killers and the victim? Well, phone records reveal that one of Sigfraer Garcia's most frequent contacts was a woman named Catherine mcmanua. Her nickname is Katie. Garcia and Macvanua have a long history of an on again, off again relationship over the course of many years, and they actually share two kids in common and Low and Behold. When looking at the phone records, Catherine Magvanwa is also one of the most frequent contacts of this defendant, Charlie Adelson. Law enforcement learned that at the time of Dan Markel's murder, this defendant was dating Katherine Mary Banwell. She was his girlfriend at the time. So Dan Marquel was a problem that this defendant needed to solve for his family. The defendant was looking to hire a hitman to kill Dan Markel. Dan Markel ends up being killed by a hit man, and who ended up being the hit man It was someone with a close relationship to this defendant's girlfriend. The hit man was the father of his girlfriend's children. So you can see how both leads in this case followed by investigators. Both of them charted paths to this defendant. Not only did looking into the motively law enforcement to the defendant because he wanted to hire someone to kill Dan Marcel, but looking into the car playing the scene also led law enforcement to the defendant through his girlfriend at the time, So two different investigations arriving at the same conclusion. Guys, I just want to interject for a second. We have about thirty more minutes left of the prosecution's opening statements, and I'm going to keep playing them because I feel like they are really setting the scene for this entire trial, and in order to understand what we're about to hear from all the different testimonies and all, we have to set the scene. And she does such a good job at doing it, way better of a job than I can do. Even just reading what she said. I really want you guys to get an understanding of all of the different parts of this trial. So we are just going to keep rolling. I am so intrigued and enthralled by the opening statements from her from the prosecution, I did not get to watch the trial in its entirety, so doing this summer series is going to really be extra enlightening for me as well because I'm learning all of the things that happened in the trial. So we are just going to keep going with the prosecution's opening statements. Law enforcement also tried to follow the money in this case, and that was a third way that the evidence in this case points to this defendant. Law enforcement reviewed bank records, employment records, dhsm V records of all of the suspects and saw that in the months after the homicide, so Afraid of Garcia, Lewis Rivera, and Catherine Magbaran, while all acquired some big ticket items. Rivera and Garcia both bought motorcycles and cars. Katherine magvan are augmentation surgery and later received a black Lexus Sedan whose previous owner was Harvey Adelson. Katherine macbhn was. Bank records were analyzed and there was no check ever written or matching cash withdrawal for the car or the breast augmentation, which was paid for in cash. Bank record also reviewed. Bank records also showed rather that Katherine macban was a count had a huge spike in cash deposits right around the time of the murder. She deposited more money into her account in the five weeks following the murder than in the entire previous year before the murder. This was during a time when there was no record of her being employed anywhere. Also, about two two months after the murder, the defendant added Catherine mcvanua to the payroll at the Adelson Institute and she began receiving regular checks from their business account every two weeks for two years after the murder. And this was despite the fact that she did not work at the Adelson Institute. So the money was talking, But what were the suspects saying? That's what law enforcement wanted to know. So, as they're examining the phone records in this case, they see a distinct pattern surrounding important events and dates, in this case, the phone calls, and they can't see the content, they can't hear the content of these calls in these phone records, but they see that the calls are occurring, and the phone calls always went from Donna Adelson to the defendant, then from the defendant to Catherine Macbanola, then from Katherine Macbanwa to Sigfredo Garcia and back the other way, kind of like train cars. They only touched the car right in front of them, you know. Donna Adelson never calls Katherine Magbanwah or Sigfredo Garcia. Charlie Adelson never calls Sigfredo Garcia or vice versa. So if this is a murder for hire, as law enforcement suspects, could it be that the defendant was wisely insulating himself from the actual shooters by having Katherine Magbanua act as a middleman between them. Law enforcement decided to launch an undercover investigation design to clarify who the members of the conspiracy were and how information traveled within this conspiracy, so police applied for and received court authorization to listen in real time to the phone calls of the defendant and Katherine Macbanlah, and this is what's known as a wire tap. By this point, the point that the law enforcement received authorization to do this wire tap, it was April of twenty sixteen, so it's been not quite but almost two years since the murder of Dan Markel, which occurred in July of twenty fourteen. So by April of twenty sixteen, the defendant and Katherine Magbanala are no longer dating. At that point, they've been broken up since the fall of twenty fourteen. Katherine macban Law is actually back together with Sigfredo Garcia, the father of her children. At that point. The defendant has moved on to many other girlfriends since Catherine Magbanua, but the defendant and Katherine Magbanwa are still in regular communication and have remained very close friends since the murder. And Rivera, who was the second hit man in that prius he in April of twenty sixteen, was actually in federal prison doing time on another charge unrelated to this murder. So all of the members of this conspiracy have presumably gone on with their lives, believing they've gotten away with this murder. So even though law enforcement has authority to listen to their calls, now you know, what are they What reason would these people have to still be discussing the murder at this point. So police needed to stage an event that would generate conversation between the conspirators about the murder. And the plan was to send an undercover agent posing as somebody on behalf of Louis Rivera who was incarcerated to walk up to Donna Adelson on the street and try to extort money out of her. And law enforcement refers to this as the bump. So this undercover agent walks up to Donna Adelson one day she's leaving the Aedelson Institute. During the day, the undercover agent hands Donna Adelson a piece of paper and on the piece of paper is an article about the murder of Dan Markel with his picture on it and you know FSU professor killed. Also on the piece of paper are a phone number and the amount of five thousand dollars. The undercover agent tells Donna Adelson that he knows that the Adelsons are taking care of Katie and he's there to extort money out of her on review A's behalf. In order to even things out, the undercover agent never says the defendant's name or anything about the defendant's involvement to Donna Adelson. Then law enforcement listens to see what will happen next. Will Donna Adelson go straight to the police to report this extortion attempt, or will something else entirely happen? As suspected based on the previously observed communication pattern, the first person that Donna Adelson calls after the bump is the defendant. Despite the fact that the undercover agent never mentioned the defendant to her on that first call, one would think that Donna Adelson would say to her son, and you know, it's so crazy. Some man came up to me and he's handed me this article about Danny's murder and he's he's you know, seems like he's truting, demanding money from us. She never says any of that. In fact, she never says Dan Markel's name at all. Instead, she tells the defendant that she needs to talk to him in person, in person, not over the phone, about some paperwork that was hand delivered to her she said that this paperwork. She says this to the defendant, it involves the two of us, and that he should know what she's talking about. She says that he should bring cash to their meeting, and she also says that this TV is about five. Donna Adelson tells the defendant that the man who approached her mentioned an ex girlfriend. Donna Adelson never says which ex girlfriend she's referring to. She never says Katherine mcmanua or Katie's name to the defendant in that phone call. She only says that the blackmailer mentioned an ex girlfriend. The defendant never asked his mom, who's ex giren? My ex girlfriend? Which ex girlfriend? He never asked that because, as the evidence will show, he didn't need to. He knew that this TV is about five meant that she was being blackmailed about Danny's murder for five thousand, and he knew that the ex girlfriend in question was Katherine mcmanwa. And we know that because after this call with his mother, the defendant calls Katherine mcbanoa. He doesn't call his most recent ex girlfriend. He doesn't even call the most recent ex girlfriend, because before the most recent ex girlfriend, the one before that no, he calls Catherine mcbanoa, and his call to Katherine macbanwa is the only call that he makes to any ex girlfriend after getting the information from his mother that the blackmailer mentioned an ex girlfriend and he had not due to Catherine macbanwah for a year and a half at that point. And although the defendant threatens to do it often, neither he nor his mom ever report the matter to the police. The only people that he discusses it with from these calls is Donna Adelson and Katherine mcbanoa. And you'll hear these phone calls between the conspirators, and as you listen to these calls, y'all will notice that they are being cautious about what they say over the phone. It's very apparent that they are very careful with their words because they are immediately suspicious that law enforcement could be listening to their conversations. So Donna Adelson calls the defendant, and the defendant's first call is to Katherine Magbanoa. After that, the defendant then meets up with his mom in person like his mom requested, and his mom gives him this paperwork that the undercover agent gave her. Then next the defendant and Catherine Magbanua meet up in person, and they meet up at a restaurant in Miami called Dulce Vita. And while they sat at their table in this distributa is a busy, noisy restaurant, an undercover FBI agent set at a table nearby with a hidden camera in their bag and recorded this conversation. And in the recording we hear the defendant discussing whether the man who walked up to his mom could be an undercover police officer or someone who's trying to blackmail them, and if it's the latter, if it's a blackmailer, is it somebody who's just trying to make a quick buck or is it somebody who actually knows information from the inside. The defendant reassures Catherine Magbanala that if it is the police, that's a good thing. The defendant thinks that if it's the police, that means that they do not have enough evidence to charge anybody. In fact, the defendant tells her, if they had any evidence, would have already gone to the airport. The defendant starts giving her some legal advice. He says that hey, in order to prove that someone committed a crime. You have to be able to put the person at the scene of the crime at the time it was committed, which, unfortunately for them, is not an accurate statement of the law. It's important to note too, at the time of this conversation at Dulcevida, no arrests had been made. The only thing that police had released to the public was a photo of the prius that fled the scene. This was the prius that Garcia and Rivera rented and used the day of Dan Markell's murder. So police knew at that point that it was Garcia and Rivera who were in the prius, but the public did not know that yet, and no arrests had been made because they wanted to do this undercover investigation. And so the fact that this photo what this priest had been released to the public is interesting in light of some of the things that y'all will hear the defendants say to Katherine Macbanway and the dulce Vita recording. He starts giving Katherine magban want several analogies, all involving in rental cars used to commit crimes. He reassures her that hey, if DNA is found in a car, all that means is that at one point the person said in the car, and if that car was later used in a crime, police can't prove that just from a person's DNA being in the car. The defendant points out to her that if a rental car is found that was at a crime scene, police also have to prove who was driving in at the time. He gives her a very relevant hypothetical of her renting a car in Miami and someone asking to borrow it and driving to Orlando to commit a robbery, and how she would be innocent in that hypothetical because she wasn't in the car at the time of the robbery. So through these analogies, the defendant is reassuring Catherine mcvanla that even if police identify who were inted the car that fled the scene, they still would not have enough evidence to hold anybody responsible for the murder, even if they did find out it was Scarcy and Rivera. The defendant also says that crimes are tough to prove unless someone actually witnessed the suspect commit a crime, or a suspect makes a confession, or a suspect is caught on a wire talking about the crime. So the defendants trying to reassure her about the lack of evidence, and hey, as long as we all a quiet, then we don't have anything to worry about. At one point, the defendants asked her, let me ask you a question, and then he asked her about money. He says, when everybody was there the next day, did you take any money? Like, are any of you driving around and Bentley? I mean? Or no, it's not like any of you are driving around in a Bentley or cruising around in a mega yacht. So here the defendants pointing out that the money wasn't used to buy anything flashy that would draw the attention of the police. And when discussing and you all will hear during the course of this trial why his statement or his question about the money from the next day is particularly important. The evidence will show that Catherine Magbanua went to the defendant's home the night of the murder, where he paid her in cash, and the next day Catherine Magbanoa paid Garcia and Rivera their cuts of the money. When discussing the possibility of whether this is actually some gangster trying to blackmail his family for money, the defendant says that whoever this person is, whoever it is, knows information. The defendant told Katherine mcmanua that there are two ways of dealing with this guy. They could call the police, but then the guy blackmailing then would be charged with trying to blackmail his family, and the blackmailer would start talking and he would start calling out Catherine mcmanwa's name, and then police are going to be asking questions about what happened. The other option is to pay the blackmailer but let him know that this is a one time thing and try to scare the blackmailer off by saying, hey, if you come around again, we're going to the police. So the defendant then gives Katherine mcbanwa very precise instructions. He wants her to call the blackmailer and tell him that you know this is this would be what he wants Catherine my bann or to say. My friends meeting the Adelson family have no idea what you're talking about, and I don't have any idea what you're talking about either. But the name of the person who you said is incarcerated sounds familiar. So I'm going to give you this money as charity to help the less fortunate. But don't contact these people again, or they're going to go to the police. And the defendant said he would give Katherine my ban one of the five thousand to pay off the blackmailer, except he's concerned though, that this will resolve the issue for good. The defendant is worried that this guy is not going to go away, that he's going to keep coming back from more and more money. And the defendant offers a solution to have this blackmailer killed, and he says he's willing to pay whatever it takes. The defendant tells her that this is the defendant talking to Katherine Ravanlah. This guy, meaning the blackmailer, is effing with him and his wife, and you'd better kill him or he's gonna be a big problem because he knows who you are. And the defendant then says, if he can't handle this, I'll have somebody else do it. The defendant says, so help me. God, if they fuck with my family, it's going to be na see shit, because this will be done. I mean, Katie, I don't care what I spend. It's important to note during this conversation and the entire wire tap, the defendant never says say Fredo Garcia's name, but the evidence will show that the defendant was talking about saig Fredo Garcia when the defendant says that the blackmailer was effing with him and his wife and if, hey, if he can't do it, I'll find someone else who will. Because immediately after that, the defendant checks with Katherine Magbanua to make sure that Garcia has no hard feelings towards him, no reason not to help him. He says, hey, I have you on salary. You think he'd be happy about that? And he also says, I mean our paths never crossed, meaning hey, Garcia wasn't in the picture when he and Katherine Mann were together. That what any overlap? After hearing that the defendant wants someone killed and is willing to pay whatever it takes to get it done, Katherine macbanwa then asked the defendant to help her out, and the defendant reassures her that she'll be taken care of by saying he says, I don't have to sometimes the cheers can be a little lobbling. I know this has taken a bit, but I'm almost done. Thank you'll for being patient, all right, So she asked him to help her out, and the defendant reassures her that she'll be taken care of. He says he doesn't have to tell her the things that he'll do for her. He shows her what he'll do for her. She doesn't have to ask him for anything. He looks for things to do. He says, hey, when someone's birthday's coming up or there's car problems, she doesn't have to ask. He looks for ways to help. And after his meeting with Katherine Magnanwah, the defendant immediately calls Donna Agelson let her know that everything's fine, and he does this using some pretty obvious code words, which y'all will hear and you'll hear the conspirators often use words to mass the meaning of what they're actually talking about. Catherine Macbanwa then, also using these code words, tasks Garcia with calling the number on the paperwork and finding out if a blackmailer is a legitimate associate of Rivera or not. And in the series of recorded calls that follow, you guys are going to hear these conspirators talking and using words like TV, false leads, listings, properties, clients, rap, songs, CDs, pop elly, pigs, relationship, advice. All these different terms that are normal terms any of us may use, but they're used in contexts in these calls that if you're listening to the conversation, do not make any sense. For example, in the calls the defendant in Katherine mcminnwead don't outright debate the pros and cons of whether they should pay this blackmailer. Instead, they talk about the fact that this property is cheap. They might expect a property like this to even be a million dollars. This property seems like a great deal, but if you get the wrong tenant in there, the tenant may keep increasing the rent, and that tenant may become a leash that never leaves you. So it will be up to y'all to decide whether this defendant is actually worried about a future tenant of a property that might raise the rent and pay him more money, or if the defendant is actually worried that if he pays off the blackmailer, then the blackmailer may continue to come back again and again, or send a cousin or a friend to become a leech that never leaves him that he can't get rid of. In another of these calls, the defendant tells Katherine mcmanua that whoever this person is, this blackmailer is he's got a lot of effing details. And in another they discuss the fact that this blackmailer is not from the inside, and the defendant says that this guy is probably not from the first layer, but the second layer. So not someone who got in from Garcia, but maybe there's somebody who got info from Rivera. But one fact, and let me just say, as the jury, you all will interpret and decide what they're really talking about in these calls. Only y'all can determine the meaning and the weight to give this evidence, and only you can separate just mere coincidences from evidence in a conspiracy. But one fact, though, is really clear throughout these calls is that all of these conspirators are hopeful that this blackmailer is law enforcement just trying to get information, because they think if it's law enforcement and the police don't have enough to bring charges just fishing for information, versus the other possibility, which would obviously be much worse for them, that the Atosins are being blackmailed by somebody who actually knows inside information about their rules. In Dan Markell's murder, and may tell the police what they know. So after this undercover operation, which was in twenty sixteen, Louis Rivera, Siffredo Garcia, and Catherine mcgranoi are arrested. They're charged with the same charges before y'all of this trial and Louis Rivera ended up cutting a deal with the state to tell law enforcement the truth about the murder of Dan Marcel and the people responsible. Ravera told law enforcement that he was hired by Sigfredo Garcia to help kill Dan Marcel, and Rivera described how Garcia told him that Katherine mcvanua, the mother of Garcia's children, secured this job for them, and the job was in Tallahassee and it paid one hundred thousand dollars, with Rivera's being cut being about a third of it thirty five thousand dollars. And Rivera explained that he and Garcia actually made two trips to Tallahassee with the intent of killing Dan Marquel. The first one was a month before the murder, it was in June of twenty fourteen, and the second was when Dan Markel was actually killed in July of twenty fourteen. Rivera said that he bought a gun off the street for that second trip, and Garcia rented a car. I'm sorry. For the June trip, Rivera bought a gun off the street and Garcia rented a car for that trip. Garcia and Rivera did some scouting on that trip of Dan Marquel's residence, some surveillance, but ultimately couldn't get the job done. They ended heading back to Miami. During a trip to Tallahassee, he said that Garcia had a piece of paper with a picture of the man that they were supposed to kill on it, and some handwritten notes as well. Cell phone records corroborated Rivera's information about the June trip. Rivera also told a story about an incident in Tallahassee where he and Garcia were riding down the road and the rented prius and Garcia accidentally discharged the murder weapon and the bullet struck the floorboard of the prius. Law enforcement tracked down that actual prius again and were able to see evidence in the undercarriage that corroborated Rivera's information about the accidental discharge. So they're looking at the phone evidence or trying to find whatever they can to kind of corroborate what he's telling them. I mentioned earlier that both men Garcia and Rivera cut their phones off from the time that they left Premiere and kept them off until well after the murder, when they're on their way back home. Rivera said that the first call that either of them made after the homicide was from Garcia to mag Banwa where Garcia told her that the job was done and mag Banoa assured them that they would get their money the next day, which they did. Rivera says when Catherine Magbanwah brought cash to him at his home, and all this information that Louis Rivera provided him was corroborated by including when the money was dropped off, was corroborated by cell phone records in this case well. Louis Rivera told police that the next day after the murder, he was paid in cash by Catherine Magbanua and that the money was packaged in a very unusual way. The money was in stacks of one hundred dollar bills and the money was stapled together. The stacks of one hundreds every thousand dollars was stapled together. During this trial, y'all will hear that the defendant had access to a lot of cash, and nothing's wrong with that. He had a lot of cash because his family gives cash discounts at their devil practice, and he keeps the cash that he receives in a safe. Again, nothing wrong about that either. However, what is relevant in this case is that the defendant had a very unusual practice of keeping the cash in his safe in thousand dollars stacks of one hundred dollars bills that were stapled together, just like the money Lewis Rivera received. Over the last few years, since the twenty sixteen arrests and interview of Lewis Rivera, Rivera, law enforcement has not stopped working on this case. There were trials in twenty nineteen and twenty twenty two, so write before the pandemic and right after the pandemic of co conspirators. Law enforcement also continued to try together all the evidence that they possibly could. They continued to interview people who may possibly have any information about the case. They tried to clarify any audio recordings that couldn't be clearly heard. While the phone wire taps are very clear, the wiretap conversations that took place in public places when these people were meeting in person were not clearly audible back in twenty sixteen. Some still aren't, but because these public places are often too noisy. For instance, the recording of the conversation between the defendant and Katherine Macmannua and dulce Vita had two more background noise to be able to clearly hear what the conspirators were talking about. However, since twenty sixteen, as technology developed over the years, and thanks to law enforcement's just continued dedication, law enforcement eventually found an expert that was formerly employed by the CIA, with improved technology and enough expertise to clarify this recording at Delcea Vita that y'all will hear. And he did that by being able to reduce as much background noise as possible, and once this recording was clarified, which was actually just early last year in twenty twenty two, the state arrested this defendant. The presentation of this events, as y'all can see from opening, is a lot. It's a lot of information. It's going to take a little bit of time, and it may be tedious at times, and I want to thank y'all in advance for the careful attention to all of the evidence y'all see and hear during this trial. When you'll do, you'll see that this defendant carried out his plan to hire a hit man to kill Dan Markel. He conspired and he solicited Katherine mcmanua to get this murder done, and he paid her for the job once it was completed. This defendant acted in furtherance of this murder plot that went beyond just thinking about it or talking about it. And these acts make him guilty as a principal to first degree murder, just as if he pulled the trigger himself. While the defendant's choices helped solve a problem within his family, they came at a very high price. He took the life of a loving father of two little boys, and he caused a lifetime of grief for Dan Markell's loved ones. Y'all heard a lot in jury's selection about how important this trial is to the defendant, which I'm sure it is. But Dan Markeel was loved, he was a brother, he was a son, and this trial is his family's opportunity to see justice done for the person who set up their son's murder. And at the conclusion of this evidence, y'all will be convinced beyond any reasonable doubt that this defendant is guilty, and at that point, we'll ask you for the only verdict that does justice in this case, which is a verdict that the defendant is guilty as charged. Thank y'all. Okay, that was the opening statements from the prosecution from the State of Florida, And I think they did a really good job at kind of outlining everything how law enforcement kind of got the ball back into their court to get these people talking again two years after this murder for hire was committed. And as we go through the trial and some of the witnesses and testimony, we're really going to see how it all kind of pieced together and how law enforcement never stopped, Like from the very beginning, they were on this, and they were on it for a while, and they weren't releasing much information to the public. Behind the scenes, they were working hard to try to get the evidence to arrest these people and it ended up happening, of course. So in the next episode, we're going to go through some of the testimony highlights from day one, and we're going to go from there. Like I said in last summer Summer series, I wasn't sure how long it's going to go on, and same goes for this one. We're going to kind of take it one day of trial at a time and highlight the important parts, and there will be some audio clips here and there because I think it's important to hear from the people. Charlie Adelson himself even testifies, Wendy Agelson testifies. I feel like it's really important to hear from all of these people and their testimony, so I am going to be including that here and there. But thank you guys so much for listening to Part three of Dan markell Summer Series. We are on our way to all of the trial happenings. Day one is going to be coming up next and I will see you guys and next Friday for a new episode in the Dan Markel Summer Series twenty twenty four. Bye guys,