Jury begins deliberations in slain FSU professor’s murder-for-hire trial
TALLAHASSEE After hearing defense lawyers argue that the wrong South Florida man and woman were on trial, a Tallahassee jury on Thursday began its deliberations in a Florida State University law professor’s murder-for-hire trial.
The professor’s ex-wife’s family in South Florida might not have ever been arrested or charged, the lawyers said in closing arguments, but the Adelsons were the ones behind the plot to kill 41-year-old Dan Markel.
Wendi Adelson was divorcing Markel when he was shot to death in his Tallahassee garage five years ago. They were locked in a bitter battle over custody of their two sons. Wendi Adelson’s family in Coral Springs wanted her and the boys closer to them.
Standing trial together are Katherine Magbanua and Sigfredo Garcia, the father of her two children. She is 34 and he is 37.
“People are chomping to get the Adelsons, and let me tell you, rightfully so,” Garcia’s Miamibased lawyer, Saam Zangeneh told jurors. “There is substantially more evidence against the Adelsons than there is against Sigfredo Garcia.”
Magbanua for a time dated Charlie Adelson, who runs the family business, The Adelson Institute for Aesthetic and Implant Dentistry in Tamarac.
Prosecutors maintain that Magbanua recruited two assassins at Charlie Adelson’s behest — Garcia and Luis Rivera.
They contend that after Markel
was killed, Magbanua, Garcia and Rivera split $100,000 supplied by Charlie Adelson.
“What is there evidence of?” Assistant State Attorney Georgia Cappleman asked during her closing. “A link. And the link’s name is Katherine Magbanua.”
Adelson’s lawyer said his client is innocent and prosecutors used Magbanua “as a pawn in its desperate attempt to charge Charlie and his family.”
Prosecutors pointed to wire taps and phone conversations between Magbanua and Adelson, as well as between Magbanua and Garcia. They turned to Magbanua’s bank account and detailed deposits that had come from Charlie Adelson and The Adelson Institute.
“Just because Katherine Magbanua didn’t come to Tallahassee or pull the trigger herself does not mean that she is not just as guilty as the ones who did,” Cappleman said. “Without her, none of this happens.”
Defense attorneys hammered away at also the state’s star witness, Luis Rivera, the second hit man and a former Latin Kings gangster. They tried to discredit Rivera’s testimony detailing how he and Garcia tailed Markel around Tallahassee and followed him home before Garcia shot him twice.
Rivera, 36, aka King Tato, took a plea deal in exchange for his testimony and is serving a prison sentence in Arizona.
“To convict her, you have to believe Luis Rivera,” Magbanua’s lawyer Chris DeCoste told the jury of 12.
“They tried to build a case around her to force her to cooperate so they can get what they’re after, the Adelsons,” DeCoste, a Miamibased criminal defense lawyer said.
Jurors began their at 3:52 p.m.
Leon Circuit Judge James C. Hankinson told jurors that if they don’t reach a verdict by 8 or 9 p.m., they will break for the night.
They were instructed to bring overnight bags because from here on out they would be sequestered. deliberations
Information from the Tallahassee Democrat was used in this report.