Day 6 - August 29, 2025

Day 6 opened with Judge Everett admonishing spectators against any visible reaction to testimony before resuming FBI Special Agent Patrick Sanford's direct examination. **Sanford — Direct (Part 3):** Sanford presented four evidence clusters. He described revelations from Katherine Magbanua's October 2022 post-conviction proffer: Charlie Adelson first asked her on Halloween night 2013 whether she knew someone who could "take care of someone," a date corroborated by a text message placing Charlie on Lincoln Road that evening. Magbanua also disclosed for the first time that on the night of the murder she went to Charlie's house to collect payment and that Donna and Harvey Adelson had personally brought the money. Sanford introduced State's Exhibit 118 — a jail call made the day after Charlie's November 6, 2023 conviction — in which Donna Adelson, believing the call had ended, was recorded researching countries with no extradition treaties, including Vietnam, Korea, China, and Dubai. Investigators confirmed she had booked travel through Dubai to Vietnam, and she was arrested November 13, 2023 on the jet bridge at Miami International Airport as she boarded a one-way flight. She physically resisted seizure of her cell phone. Finally, Sanford described a 2014 day planner — provided by Donna's prior counsel — in which Dan Markel's vehicle tag number (584YBM) for his 2008 Honda Accord had been recorded, the same vehicle the killers tracked to the scene. **Sanford — Cross:** Defense attorney Fulford cross-examined Sanford across three arcs. She catalogued the scope of an eleven-year investigation — hundreds of thousands of emails, thousands of recorded calls, multi-agency surveillance — and then used that scope to highlight what it did not produce: no wiretap on Donna's own phone, no direct communication between Donna and either hitman, and no contact between Donna and Katherine Magbanua beyond a brief dental-office greeting. Fulford walked Sanford through Magbanua's history of perjury in two prior trials, with Sanford confirming she "lied in her first two trials. Absolutely," while characterizing the evolving disclosures as typical defendant minimization. Fulford introduced Defense Exhibit 60 — a 90-day, multiple-entry Vietnamese tourist visa — to challenge the prosecution's flight-risk narrative, noting no arrest warrant had been sought for nine years and was obtained only on the day of the flight. The cross closed with a sequence in which Sanford confirmed Donna Adelson never explicitly said she wanted Markel killed, never said she was planning it, never said she hired anyone, and never stated she intended his death. **Sanford — Redirect:** Cappleman immediately reframed the "no direct evidence" theme, with Sanford confirming the state had "a lot" of circumstantial evidence. She walked Sanford through the full architecture of Charlie Adelson's extortion defense and characterized Donna's payroll checks as a "layaway plan" for gang-member killers — which Sanford confirmed as what Charlie claimed. She used Donna's own 2023 day planner to establish a family bar mitzvah was scheduled for January 14, 2024, roughly two months after the November 2023 one-way flight, and that no return ticket had been booked. **Grossman — Direct and Cross:** Miami-Dade Detective Jonathan Grossman testified about a November 14, 2023 search warrant at Donna Adelson's Brickell Avenue condominium. Photographs admitted over defense objection showed luggage near the entryway bearing Saigon-via-Dubai destination tags. Vietnam visas for both Harvey and Donna Adelson were admitted without objection, and a photographed bedroom note appeared to offer an M11 gun for sale. On cross, Fulford established that despite the Vietnam-tagged luggage being photographed as a state exhibit, investigators never opened the bags. Grossman also confirmed that stapled stacks of $100 bills — referenced in the broader conspiracy narrative — were not found during the search. **Donna Adelson Consent Colloquy:** Before the lunch recess, Judge Everett placed Donna Adelson under oath and confirmed she had discussed with counsel and consented to the cross-examination strategy for jailhouse informant witnesses Byrd and Bernhardt. Zelman's qualified acknowledgment — conditioned on "the court's ruling previously reinforced this morning" — signaled a prior contested sidebar that had already been resolved. **Byrd — Direct, Cross, Redirect:** Jailhouse informant Patricia Byrd, facing up to fifteen years on a felony violation, testified she shared a pod with Donna Adelson for several months. After they became close, Byrd asked Adelson directly whether she had done what she was accused of; Adelson allegedly replied that she had, that it was done to keep her grandchildren, but that it "wasn't supposed to go that far." Byrd further testified that after Adelson learned Byrd had previously been jailed with Magbanua, Adelson recruited her to spread a fabricated account attributing the murder motive to Adelson family wealth, offering a trailer, land, and dental veneers in exchange. On cross, Zelman established a prior inconsistency in Byrd's description of a defense investigator, exposed a discrepancy in how many times investigators visited, and extracted Byrd's concession that she had previously testified Donna Adelson said she did not plan the murder — a qualification limiting the scope of the alleged confession. Redirect re-established that Byrd's question to Adelson addressed the murder accusation broadly, and that Adelson answered yes. **Bernhardt — Direct, Cross, Redirect:** Jailhouse informant Drina Bernhardt, with 27 prior convictions and two open felony cases, testified that during approximately four months sharing a pod with Donna Adelson she became close enough that Adelson called her "jail daughter." Bernhardt testified that Adelson wrote a detailed narrative in Bernhardt's notebook (State's Exhibit 62) and directed her to falsely testify that Magbanua had confessed to extorting Charlie Adelson by claiming she could protect him from the killers. Bernhardt denied Magbanua ever said any of those things. The alleged bribe package included $10,000 via Zelle from Harvey Adelson (contact through Signal), a grand piano, cameras, jail packages, phone calls, and access to a physician for controlled-substance prescriptions. On cross, Zelman built a motive arc around Bernhardt's 15-year mandatory-minimum exposure, her question "Did I do a good job?" at her first SAO meeting, and her admission that she deliberately positioned herself where jail cameras could capture her reviewing paperwork with Adelson. Bernhardt flatly denied directing the script's content, and Zelman ended cross after that denial. Redirect established that Bernhardt held no current plea offer and had no prior knowledge of the Magbanua narrative — rebutting the implication she had dictated its content. **Butler — Direct and Cross (Waived):** FDLE forensic document examiner Kate Butler testified that her comparison of the writing in State's Exhibit 62 against known Donna Adelson handwriting in State's Exhibit 59 yielded an identification conclusion, the highest certainty level in the discipline. She walked the jury through specific matching characteristics including uppercase W tick structure, lowercase Y-staff loops, an open-loop E, and T-crossbar-to-S combinations. On cross, Zelman waived examination with an on-record statement that the defense had never contested Adelson's authorship. Prosecution moved to strike the remark as attorney argument; Judge Everett granted the motion and instructed the jury to consider only evidence from the witness stand. **Corbitt — Recalled Direct, Cross, Redirect:** Sergeant Corbitt was recalled to present State's Exhibit 73B, a new digital forensics summary from Donna Adelson's phone and Charlie Adelson's iCloud. He testified that in the week following the murder, Charlie's texts to Magbanua covered the gym, weather, and prescription shampoo — nothing about extortion, bad guys, or money — and that in August 2016, while supposedly being extorted for over two years, Charlie messaged Donna an alternative murder theory with no mention of extortion. Donna first searched "extortion vs. blackmail" on October 16, 2023 — one week before Charlie's trial, nine years after the extortion allegedly began. Corbitt then presented Donna's real-time reactions to Charlie's conviction: a text to Wendi minutes after the guilty verdict reading "You can bury me in the dress that I bought for Lincoln's Bar Mitzvah," followed within 24 hours by an emergency Vietnam visa application for herself and Harvey, a search for "list of United States extradition treaties," and day-planner entries to sell jewelry, cancel insurance, and stop deliveries — along with an instruction directing Wendi to have Charlie's attorney inform Charlie of the Vietnam plans on a private line to avoid jail call monitoring. On cross, Zelman recontextualized several day-planner entries: a photographed label identified "implants" as an "implant motor" consistent with Harvey's dental practice, and Corbitt conceded no evidence of overseas asset transfers, each individual indicator standing alone, or Donna's awareness of Charlie's post-murder friendly texts with Magbanua. Redirect reinforced Corbitt's characterization that "there was urgency in every — all the communications." **State Rests:** Following Corbitt's testimony, lead prosecutor Georgia Cappleman formally rested the state's case. Judge Everett dismissed the jury for the Labor Day weekend, directing return Tuesday at 8:30 a.m. In a brief post-jury colloquy, defense counsel Zelman reserved all mid-trial motions until Tuesday morning; Everett agreed and reminded the defense to finalize its witness arrangements.