Day 7 - November 3, 2023

Day 7 was devoted almost entirely to Charlie Adelson's testimony and the formal close of the evidentiary record. The day opened with the conclusion of Rashbaum's direct examination, in which Charlie explained his silence toward law enforcement — "I would have been killed" — and identified the 2019 Magbanua trial as the moment he concluded he had been deceived, citing her denial of knowing Dan Markel and the condition of her bank account. Rashbaum closed direct by naming each charged count; Charlie answered "Absolutely not" or "Never" to each. Georgia Cappleman opened cross by invoking Occam's Razor and worked through the physical circumstances of the alleged July 18–19, 2014 extortion: Magbanua was unarmed, stayed overnight, and did not leave with the $138,000 until the following morning, after which Charlie sent affectionate texts. Cappleman pressed that Charlie used the word "extortion" 123 times during direct examination but it appears nowhere on hundreds of hours of wire recordings — the only mention being an intentional whisper into his father's ear at Matsuri, inaudible to surveillance. She challenged his failure to assist Magbanua during three years of pretrial detention despite claiming to possess exculpatory knowledge, confronted him with the "roughed up" language match between his testimony and Magbanua's proffer, and played Dolce Vita clips line by line. Judge Everett intervened during the clip examination to direct that the parties not speak over each other and to instruct Charlie to answer questions before elaborating. Cappleman closed with the prosecution's framing: Charlie was not merely someone who knew what happened but a piece of it. Charlie answered, "I was extorted, and I knew a lot, yeah." On redirect, Rashbaum returned to the payment structure and continued contact. Charlie introduced the "life insurance policy" metaphor to explain the installment payments and testified that he maintained contact with Magbanua after July 2014 for self-protection. The jet ski anecdote drew a sustained relevance objection and a sidebar before the court allowed the question; Charlie confirmed he had not called police for fear of retaliation, mirroring his stated reason for avoiding police in 2014. He closed by stating that staying silent would cost him the rest of his life in prison for something he did not do. Following redirect, Rashbaum formally rested the defense case. The state declined to present rebuttal. Judge Everett released the jury for the weekend and directed them to return Monday at 8:30 for closing arguments. In an afternoon charge conference, the court finalized jury instructions over one substantively contested ruling: the prosecution's request for a standalone intent definition drawn from Standard Instruction 13.1. The defense objected that the instruction was unnecessary and had not appeared in the Magbanua retrial. Judge Everett overruled, citing Butler v. State. Both parties waived all lesser included offenses on the murder count on the record, and the defense conceded the homicide was neither excusable nor justified, producing a binary guilty/not-guilty verdict form on all three counts — first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, and solicitation to commit first-degree murder. The accomplice credibility instruction was modified to include immunity language for Wendi Adelson and Katherine Magbanua's hope for favorable treatment. Both sides were directed to review the final edited instructions before Monday's closings.