Florida dentist accused of hiring a man to kill famous law professor

A Florida dentist was arrested Thursday on charges of hiring a hitman to kill his former brother-in-law, Florida State University law professor Daniel Markel.

Markel, 41, was shot to death on July 18, 2014, as he sat in his car and talked on his cell phone. At the time, he was going through a bitter divorce from Charles Adelson’s sister.

Prosecutors allege that Adelson, 45, conspired to kill Markel because his sister, Wendi Adelson, was unable to move from Tallahassee to the Fort Lauderdale area with her two children due to a joint custody agreement.

A grand Leon County grand jury on Wednesday returned an indictment that charges Charles Adelson with first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder and solicitation to commit murder. Online prison records show he is being held without bond at the Broward County jail.

His ex-girlfriend, Katherine Magbanua, is also named in the indictment on the same charges.

Magbanua has been charged in the case for allegedly organizing the attack, but is expected to be retried next month for first-degree murder after a jury hanged him in 2019.

The indictment alleges that Charles Adelson and Magbanua conspired together to carry out the murders. It says they solicited Sigfredo Garcia, the father of Magbanua’s children, as well as Garcia’s friend, Luis Rivera, to commit the crime.

Garcia is serving a life sentence after he was convicted in 2019 of first-degree murder. Rivera is serving a 19-year sentence after pleading guilty to second-degree murder in exchange for testimony against Garcia and Magbanua.

Leon State Attorney Jack Campbell said in a statement that Charles Adelson was indicted after technicians were able to enhance the sound in an April 2016 video that was secretly filmed as he spoke to Magbanua while he was under surveillance.

“This recording includes statements by Charles Adelson that can be heard clearly for the first time,” Campbell said.

In the recording, released on Thursday, Charles Adelson tells Magbanua that if the police knew anything, “we’d be at the airport by now.” He then told her that police simply putting someone in a car or with another person was not enough to convict a crime and that prosecutors needed proof that person was involved in the crime. At other points in the conversation, he said he was not involved in Markel’s death.

David Markus and Margot Moss, attorneys for Charles Adelson, said in a statement Friday that he is innocent and that “prosecutors have no new information leading up to this arrest.” They called the move an act of “desperation” and said the audio recordings vindicated their client because he repeatedly denied his involvement.

at Blogtuan.info – Source: nbcnews.com – Read the original article here