Charlie Adelson Trial Day 3, Part 2: Mapping a murder with financial trails, suspicious routes

Charlie Adelson's trial used creative case management in securing a conviction.

Follow the money

On Monday afternoon, forensic accounting expert Mary Hull took the stand, testifying to the variety of financial details that define one aspect of motive in this case, as well as how the conspiracy was paid for.

Hull reviewed the financial records for all arrested parties to date, as well as the Adelson Institute, and some records from other members of the Adelson family. Under direct examination by prosecutor Sarah Kathryn Dugan, Hull shared that both Luis Rivera and Sigfredo Garcia made big purchases right after the murder, including motorcycles and cars.

Of note, Hull testified to changes in Rivera’s banking habits immediately after the murder. For example, before the murder, Rivera would deposit paychecks and then withdraw cash and overdraft shortly after — month after month. After Dan Markel was murdered, Rivera stopped pulling large amounts of cash out of his bank account, and therefore overdrafts didn’t happen — indicating he had an alternative source of funds during that time. This new pattern prevailed for about four months and then reverted back to the pattern of deposits followed shortly by overdrafts.

Regarding Katie Magbanua’s finances, Hull had many things to share. She portrayed extensive text messages between Katie and Charlie Adelson in which Katie was the recipient of various gifts — such as car insurance, car repairs, drugs, vacations, breast augmentation and more. Further, Katie’s bank records suggest that after the murder, she earned a majority of her money from Adelson-related sources as well as cash.

Before the murder, cash accounted for 23% of Katie’s deposits, jumping to 64% the year of the murder. Katie’s checks from the Adelson Institute — where Katie has admitted she never truly worked — were signed by Donna Adelson. Of the 44 checks written to her, nearly all were either paid in advance to her or written on sequential checks. This pattern is in direct contradiction to how actual Adelson Institute employees Clariza Lebredo and Erika Johnson, testified earlier about how they were paid. These two witnesses further disclosed (even if what seemed to be reluctantly) that Katie had never worked at the dental practice and had only been a patient there.

But it was regarding Adelson family finances where the real money came into play. Charlie himself was shown to earn more than $3 million a year, including from his work as a dentist and in real estate. As a whole, between Charlie, Donna, Harvey Adelson and Wendi Adelson, the family had about $5 million in investment accounts, totaling more than $8.1 million in total (known) bank account balances in July 2024, not including cash.

And there was a lot of cash, too. Hull testified to text messages between Charlie and other dentists regarding discounts for cash balances and showed text messages between Adelson family members about large volumes of cash on hand. In one text message, Harvey Adelson texts Charlie to say he’d take $26,000 that was owed in cash but then changes his mind and says, “I have too much cash” and opts for another payment option instead. In another message, Donna tells Charlie she will be taking $25,000 from the office checkbook and replacing it with $25,000 from their family’s safe.

Defense attorney Dan Rashbaum’s cross-examination of Hull didn’t challenge the numbers presented. Rather, he challenged if they meant anything about a murder.

For example, Rashbaum pointed out that while Rivera’s finances spiked in cash, Katie seemed to have a steady flow of money for a much longer time. To Rashbaum, this supports the theory that Katie was extorting Charlie over time while Rivera simply did a job and disappeared.

“On your graphs, the word “murder” isn’t scientific, right?” Rashbaum asked Hull, following that it could be as accurate to say “extortion.”

“Yes,” Hull conceded — but of course, the fact remains that a murder had happened on that day.

Detours back to Lacasse

Tallahassee Police Department Sargeant Chris Hale testified next. He affirmed that Wendi’s ex-boyfriend Jeffrey Lacasse had been seen as a suspect initially but was quickly ruled out since he was in another state at the time of the murder. Lacasse would be interviewed multiple times, regardless, as he volunteered to speak with law enforcement at different points over the many years.

In one interview, in mid-August 2014, Lacasse told Hale that he’d spoken with Wendi, and she said her brother had taken her out for a “celebration dinner” after the murder. Wendi denied having said that to Lacasse, and beyond that, Rashbaum lambasted Lacasse for waiting until March 2015 to disclose this to authorities.

But Lacasse didn’t actually wait until March and Hale affirmed that today.

“It’s incorrect to state that Jeffrey Lacasse waited until March of 2015” to talk about the “celebration dinner, Cappleman asked. Hale agreed.

“It’s correct that it’s incorrect?” Cappleman followed.

“Yes,” Hale affirmed.

Rashbaum took Hale as an opportunity to attempt once again to attack Lacasse’s credibility — a goal that makes sense for the defense considering Lacasse is an incredibly strong witness against Charlie. Rashbaum tried to characterize Lacasse as a jilted stalker — but Lacasse was hardly that. In fact, Lacasse’s testimony in this trial validated that he was justified in being skeptical about Wendi’s faithfulness — he had good reason to be. Lacasse later learned that he was vindicated in his worry about Wendi’s fidelity during times when they were exclusive. Indeed, even Cappleman reminded Wendi that law enforcement had a copy of her cellphone and knew when she was on dating sites, talking with men, and so on.

The “celebration dinner” was the least of what Lacasse has offered, regardless. To courtroom observers, including podcaster John Steinbeck who works with Carl Steinbeck’s Jury Trial Mentor, the jury’s attention was seriously piqued when Lacasse said Wendi had confided in him how Charlie had legitimately looked into a hit man the prior Summer.

Cellphone records map the conspiracy

Dugan brought up the State’s next witness, Chris Corbitt — an expert in tracking communications. It’s a technical science of cell towers and handsets.

“The display of advocacy that Sarah Dugan had today in performing a direct examination on Sgt. Corbitt was the most brilliant and effective prosecutor-witness dialogue I’ve ever seen on something so complex,” said Carl Steinbeck. “It should be used in all future trial advocacy training sessions for how to smoothly and effectively handle dense technical information. Sgt. Corbitt was the best digital forensics expert you could find on a case like this.”

Corbitt provided some testimony that was new to this trial. For example, phone location records show that on July 6, 2014, Wendi was in South Florida at her parents’ home in Miami. While there, she texted Markel asking if he would be in Tallahassee between July 14-18, the dates that encompassed the dates the hit men traveled to Tallahassee. Dan replied affirmatively. At that same time on July 6, Charlie was located near Magbanua’s residence.

Corbitt also testified to the call patterns that were seen between various conspirators — Charlie, Wendi, Katie, Sigfredo, and Harvey and Donna — at key points in time, including during the first attempt in June, and the morning of the homicide in July. Dozens of calls occurred between the parties that day, including a telling 18-minute phone call between Wendi and Charlie, where she claims they had been discussing whether to “repair or replace” the broken TV that she had just heard from the Geek Squad service technician was not repairable.

Notably, Corbitt said Wendi had a calendar item in her phone labeled “FIX TV” that she deleted before law enforcement analyzed her phone later that day. Wendi had also received a text message from Donna at 8:09 saying “Best Buy just called,” and that they were on their way to “help Wendi fix the TV in her living room.” This was followed by a flurry of calls between Wendi, Donna, Charlie and Katie.

Corbitt then validated the routes that Markel took on July 18 between his home, the preschool and the gym; the route that Garcia and Rivera took in their plot to ambush him; and the route that Wendi took just after the shooting when she chose to drive miles out of her way — while already running late to a lunch date — right up to the crime scene on her way to buy whiskey.

On this, Corbitt affirmed what Officer Bill Brannon had testified to previously — that Wendi drove up to the roadblock on July 18, contrary to her testimony that she stayed on Centerville and never turned on to Trescott. Dugan asked Corbitt whether Wendi had attempted to contact Markel to see if he was OK or contact the preschool to see if the children were OK after encountering the crime scene. Corbitt testified that, no, Wendi made no such calls of concern. Rather, she continued on her way to ABC Liquor.

Dugan asked Corbitt whether there were any alternative liquor stores that Wendi could have gone to, closer to where she was heading to eat lunch that day. Corbitt said yes, that there were multiple other liquor stores within a block or two of her lunch destination. Instead, she drove well out of her way. The sensical route to an alternative store would have been about “3.63 miles or about 11 minutes,” while Corbitt said the route Wendi chose to take — up to Markel’s home — was almost 9.5 miles, with a travel time of a little over 20 minutes.

Corbitt introduced some text messages between Charlie and Donna that illuminate more about the family’s actions before the murder. Earlier today, Katie testified that Charlie first floated the conspiracy to murder Markel to her on Oct. 31, 2013. Corbitt shared that on that very day, Charlie texted Donna telling her that Wendi was going to “pull the plug” on buying a house in Tallahassee. Donna called him a miracle worker and wanted to know how he had accomplished it.

These text messages were followed by a series of text messages where Donna vented angrily to Charlie about Markel and the divorce proceedings. A few months later, in March, Donna and Charlie exchanged a message regarding a secretive “birthday gift” for Harvey, whose birthday was still a few months after that, in July. Wendi testified last week that there was no big gift she could recall for her father that year, to which Cappleman had asked whether Dan’s murder was the gift.

Just a day after the June murder attempt failed, Donna and Charlie texted again, with Donna saying she would be going to Tallahassee to visit the boys before Harvey’s birthday. Charlie replied, “OK have fun, still working on dads b day present” to which Donna replied, “I know you’ll come thru.”

Cross-examination of Corbitt will begin this morning.

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Florida Politics provides ongoing coverage of the Markel murder case, which is drawing international media attention to Florida’s capital city. Our reporting draws from sources including contributor Karen Cyphers of Sachs Media, who, with attorney Jason Solomon, advocates with the grassroots group “Justice for Dan” to draw attention to the case and provide analysis relevant to Florida’s political, advocacy and legal communities.