Opening Statements
335 linesJUDGE WHEELER: Okay, we'll proceed to opening statements. The State goes first. And Ms. Cappleman or Ms. Dugan, you may proceed.
MS. DUGAN: Good morning. Y'all, thank you for being here today.
MS. DUGAN: Uh, Judge, I think we might have a question.
JUDGE WHEELER: Yes. Well, is there a question? Is anything specific, or are you having a problem hearing? Or — okay, do you, uh, do you need something done, or do you need to be closer to the speaker?
JUROR: Apparently.
JUDGE WHEELER: You're hearing some feedback? Yeah, you just need to turn off your phone.
JUROR: Okay.
JUDGE WHEELER: Definitely. If you could take, um, uh, the juror back to, uh, turn off this phone, that'll be fine. You can just go back and turn off your phone. Just let us know when you're ready and come back out.
JUDGE WHEELER: All good now?
JUDGE WHEELER: Okay, great. I appreciate you letting me know. Okay, Ms. Dugan.
MS. DUGAN: Thank you. Good morning again, everybody.
MS. DUGAN: Thank you all for your service today.
MS. DUGAN: All right, so the reason we're here today, the reason we're here this morning, is because the defendant in this case, Katherine Magbanua, set up the murder of a man named Dan Markel.
MS. DUGAN: And the evidence in this case will prove to you that the defendant was the link, or the middleman, between the people who wanted this murder done and the person who pulled the trigger.
MS. DUGAN: This murder was set into motion because back in 2014, the defendant had a rich boyfriend named Charlie Adelson, and Charlie Adelson's family had a big problem, and that problem was Dan Markel, and the solution to the problem was this defendant.
MS. DUGAN: This defendant was the solution because she had connections to the type of people who were willing and capable of pointing a gun at a stranger — someone they'd never met — and pulling the trigger.
MS. DUGAN: The victim in this case, Dan Markel, was known as Danny to his friends and his family.
MS. DUGAN: He was a loving father to two little boys at the time of his death. He was a highly respected law professor at Florida State University, and he was shot twice in the head in broad daylight in the driveway of his home in the Benton Hills neighborhood here in Tallahassee.
MS. DUGAN: The last day of Dan Markel's life began like any other of his days that summer. He woke up, he dropped his two young sons off at preschool, and then he drove to the gym to work out.
MS. DUGAN: After finishing his workout, he returned home, he pulled in the driveway, and he opened his garage.
MS. DUGAN: But little did he know that throughout his normal routine that morning, he was being followed.
MS. DUGAN: He was being followed by two hired hitmen who traveled all the way to Tallahassee from Miami for the sole purpose of murdering him.
MS. DUGAN: And when he pulled into his driveway that morning after his workout, the killers pulled in right behind him.
MS. DUGAN: Moments later, Dan Markel's neighbor heard a gunshot. He looked out the window, and the neighbor saw a light-colored Prius back quickly out of Dan Markel's driveway and speed off towards Benton Road.
MS. DUGAN: The neighbor, you know, waited a couple minutes and looked outside to see if Dan Markel was gonna come outside or walk back down the driveway too, or what, and he didn't see anything, so he, you know, got a funny feeling, walks over there to see what's going on, and he discovers a gruesome scene. He sees that Dan Markel's car window, his driver's side window, is shattered. He sees that Dan Markel is still behind the wheel and he's alive but unresponsive and terribly injured.
MS. DUGAN: He calls 911, law enforcement arrives, they find Dan Markel unresponsive too.
MS. DUGAN: He's got a gunshot wound to the head and he's taken to the hospital, where he survived for about 14 hours before he was pronounced dead.
MS. DUGAN: And Dan Markel was just 41 years old when he died.
MS. DUGAN: Law enforcement immediately begins to investigate who killed Dan Markel.
MS. DUGAN: They learn of a couple of clues that immediately set them down these two different paths in this investigation.
MS. DUGAN: The first path relates to Dan Markel's personal life, and the second path relates to that light-colored Prius that the neighbor saw fleeing from the crime scene. And the evidence will show that both of these paths led to this defendant.
MS. DUGAN: So let's talk about the first path.
MS. DUGAN: In looking into Dan Markel's personal life, at who might have a motive to want him dead, law enforcement learned that Markel was entangled in a very nasty divorce with his ex-wife, who was named Wendi Adelson.
MS. DUGAN: A review of the court case file revealed that Wendi Adelson was desperate to move back to Miami with her children in order to be closer to her parents. Her parents are named Harvey and Donna Adelson, and also her brother who lives down there too. His name is Charlie Adelson, and you may remember that name from earlier. Charlie Adelson was the rich boyfriend of the defendant.
MS. DUGAN: Dan Markel was adamantly opposed to his children being relocated to Miami. He's a law professor here in Tallahassee. He wants his kids here with him.
MS. DUGAN: And the judge ended up ruling in his favor — in Dan Markel's favor. So Wendi was not permitted to move to Miami with the children.
MS. DUGAN: Unless, of course, something happened to Dan Markel.
MS. DUGAN: A review of Wendi Adelson's emails revealed that her mother, Donna Adelson, hated Dan Markel and was desperate to find a way for Wendi and her children — Donna Adelson's grandchildren — to be able to relocate to Miami, even if that meant having to threaten, bully, or bribe Dan Markel to accomplish this.
MS. DUGAN: Although the divorce between Dan Markel and Wendi Adelson was final about a year before the murder, litigation continued throughout that year, right up until his death, with both sides alleging violations of the custody agreement, violations of the settlement agreement, and actually shortly before the murder, Dan Markel alleged that Donna Adelson was disparaging him to his children.
MS. DUGAN: And he actually asked the court to enter an order preventing Donna Adelson from having unsupervised contact with his children, her grandchildren.
MS. DUGAN: But the murder of Dan Markel ensured that a ruling on this motion would never be a problem.
MS. DUGAN: And just days after the murder, Wendi Adelson and the little boys relocated to Miami, within walking distance of the Adelson family's Miami home. Dan Markel's sons' last name was changed from Markel to Adelson, and just like that, their father was effectively erased from their lives.
MS. DUGAN: And the Adelson family's big problem had been resolved.
MS. DUGAN: You'll hear during this trial that the Adelsons are a very tight-knit family.
MS. DUGAN: Wendi and her parents and her brother Charlie are all extremely close. Harvey Adelson and Donna Adelson and Charlie Adelson actually all work together at the Adelson Institute, which is the family's dental practice in Miami. And Charlie is especially close with his mother Donna. The two of them talk every day on the phone for long periods of time, and Donna is very involved in Wendi Adelson and Charlie Adelson's lives.
MS. DUGAN: After Dan Markel was killed, law enforcement interviewed Wendi Adelson, and she acknowledged that her family did have a motive to want Dan Markel dead.
MS. DUGAN: She said that her brother, Charlie Adelson, had actually made comments that he looked into hiring a hitman to kill Dan Markel as a divorce present to her, but decided to buy her a TV instead because that was cheaper.
MS. DUGAN: So this path of looking into a motive in Dan Markel's personal life of who would want to kill him leads law enforcement to Charlie Adelson, a man who looked into hiring a hitman to kill him.
MS. DUGAN: And then Dan Markel was killed by a hitman.
MS. DUGAN: And who was Charlie Adelson's girlfriend at the time of this murder?
MS. DUGAN: It was this defendant.
MS. DUGAN: And the fact that she was his girlfriend at the time becomes significant when you hear where the other path of this investigation led.
MS. DUGAN: The other path began when the neighbors saw that Prius pulling out of the driveway fleeing from the crime scene. So simultaneously, as police are investigating any motive in Dan Markel's personal life, the police are also trying to track down that Prius. They've got to track down that Prius. And when law enforcement retraced Dan Markel's steps that morning on the day of his death, they uncovered some chilling surveillance images of that Prius, just like the one seen by the neighbor, following Dan Markel into the Premier Gym parking lot, waiting for an hour for him in the parking lot while he was inside working out, and then following him back home from Premier Gym to Bettons Hills.
MS. DUGAN: And these surveillance images, coupled with cell phone records gathered in this case, help police track down the exact car used to commit this crime, and they were able to identify both of the hitmen who rented that car and the woman who hired them to do the killing — this defendant. Finding the hitmen and this defendant, though, was not a simple task, and you'll hear a lot about that during this trial. This was done through a painstaking review of surveillance images, cell phone records, and SunPass toll records that took a long time. It was a monumental task.
MS. DUGAN: And law enforcement combed through all of the cell phone numbers communicating with the cell tower that services Premier Gym around the time that that Prius was seen in the parking lot. And law enforcement found a number with a Miami area code, and that number belonged to a man named Sigfredo Garcia, who is the father of the defendant's children.
MS. DUGAN: Law enforcement examined all of Garcia's call logs, and they saw that he was in frequent contact with another number that was also present at Premier Gym that day when the Prius was there. And that number belongs to a man named Luis Rivera. Luis Rivera is a Miami Latin King gang member, and he is a lifelong friend of Sigfredo Garcia.
MS. DUGAN: So police then look at all of Garcia and Rivera's phone records, and it shows that they left Miami on July 16th of 2014.
MS. DUGAN: They arrived in Tallahassee on the day of the murder, on July 18th. They followed Dan Markel to Premier Gym.
MS. DUGAN: It shows their phones both being powered down, turned off just minutes before the murder, and they stayed off until after the murder.
MS. DUGAN: The phones then came on again around Gainesville as the two were headed southbound back to Miami, and an ATM camera caught both of them in the Prius on the return trip down to Miami. So now police know the identity of the two men responsible for following and killing Dan Markel, but they continue to look for evidence to explain why two men who live in Miami came all the way to Tallahassee to kill a man they've never met. What or who is the connection between the killers and Dan Markel? Phone.
MS. DUGAN: Phone records revealed that one of Garcia's most frequent contacts in his cell phone was the defendant.
MS. DUGAN: As I said, Garcia and the defendant shared children in common together, and they also have a long history of an on-again, off-again relationship.
MS. DUGAN: And the defendant, they saw, is also a frequent contact in Charlie Adelson's phone records — the man who once joked about hiring a hitman to kill Markel. And law enforcement, as I said, learned that the defendant was dating Charlie Adelson at the time that Dan Markel was murdered.
MS. DUGAN: So the defendant's boyfriend was looking to hire a hitman, and her children's father was the hitman who killed Dan Markel. So not only did the path of law enforcement looking into the motive in this crime lead to the defendant because she was dating Charlie Adelson, but looking into the car fleeing the scene also led law enforcement to the defendant through her relationship with Garcia.
MS. DUGAN: So both of these paths in this investigation ended with the defendant.
MS. DUGAN: Two investigations and one conclusion.
MS. DUGAN: Law enforcement then reviewed bank records, employment records, and DHSMV records of all the suspects, and saw that in the months after the homicide, Sigfredo Garcia, Luis Rivera, and this defendant all acquired some big ticket items.
MS. DUGAN: Rivera and Garcia both bought motorcycles and cars. The defendant got a breast augmentation surgery and later got a black Lexus sedan whose previous owner was Harvey Adelson.
MS. DUGAN: The defendant's bank records were analyzed, and there was no check ever written or matching cash withdrawal for the car or the breast augmentation.
MS. DUGAN: Also, about two months after this murder, the defendant was added to the payroll at the Adelson Institute.
MS. DUGAN: She began receiving regular checks from their business account, although no one has been able to determine what, if anything, she did for the dental practice. She never physically went there to work. She never made any calls on the Adelsons' behalf that law enforcement was ever able to find, and the other employees of the Adelson Institute confirmed that she did not work there. Bank records showed that the defendant's account had a huge cash spike around — or, I'm sorry, shortly after — this murder. You'll learn that she deposited more money into her account in the five weeks after this murder than in the entire year before.
MS. DUGAN: And this was during a time where there was no record of her being employed.
MS. DUGAN: In the year following the murder, she deposited three times as much cash as she did in the year before the murder.
MS. DUGAN: So the investigation that developed from the crime scene led to the defendant through the relationship with the shooter. The investigation that led from looking into the motive in his private life led to the defendant through her relationship with Charlie Adelson, and the financial evidence implicated the defendant as a beneficiary of a large amount of cash and some gifts after the murder.
MS. DUGAN: But the police also noticed something else.
MS. DUGAN: They noticed a distinct pattern in the phone activity surrounding important events or dates in this case.
MS. DUGAN: The phone calls always went from Donna Adelson to Charlie Adelson, then from Charlie Adelson to this defendant, and then from this defendant to Sigfredo Garcia, and then back the other way.
MS. DUGAN: Donna Adelson never contacted the defendant. Charlie Adelson never contacted Sigfredo Garcia. Could it be that the Adelsons were insulating themselves from the killers — the people who pulled the trigger — by having this defendant act as a middleman to set up this murder? Law enforcement decided to launch an undercover operation to clarify who the members of this conspiracy were and how information traveled within the conspiracy. Police were able to get court authorization to go up on a wiretap, and they listened in real time to the phone calls between the defendant and Charlie Adelson. But at that point, almost two years had gone by since the murder. All the members of the conspiracy had gone on with their lives, believing they'd gotten away with this. The defendant and Charlie Adelson are still in communication, but they are no longer dating, and they hadn't been in a relationship for about a year and a half.
MS. DUGAN: The defendant is actually back together with Sigfredo Garcia at this point — kind of on again, off again. At this point, they're back together.
MS. DUGAN: And Charlie Adelson has moved on and had many other girlfriends since the defendant.
MS. DUGAN: And Rivera, at that time, was actually in federal prison doing time on another charge unrelated to this murder.
MS. DUGAN: As part of the undercover operation, the police needed some event that would generate conversation between the conspirators of this murder. And the plan was to send an undercover agent posing as somebody on behalf of Luis Rivera, who was incarcerated, and they wanted the undercover agent to walk up to Donna Adelson on the street and try to extort money out of her.
MS. DUGAN: So the undercover agent walks up to Donna Adelson outside of the Adelson Institute.
MS. DUGAN: He hands her a piece of paper, and the piece of paper has an article on it about the murder of Dan Markel.
MS. DUGAN: And it has a phone number, and it has the amount of $5,000.
MS. DUGAN: And the undercover agent tells Donna Adelson that he knows that the Adelsons are taking care of Katherine Magbanua and Sigfredo Garcia, and that Rivera wants more money to even things out. Because, if y'all will remember, the defendant is still on the Adelson Institute payroll. She stays on the payroll from about two months after the murder all the way up to May 2016, and she's continuing to get money from the Adelsons while Rivera just got the one-time payment for murder. So that's what the undercover agent says. He wants more money to even things out — Rivera does.
MS. DUGAN: Then law enforcement listens to see what will happen next.
MS. DUGAN: Will Donna Adelson call Garcia or Rivera?
MS. DUGAN: Will she call the police?
MS. DUGAN: Or will she confirm the pattern that law enforcement initially observed and call Charlie Adelson? And then, if so, will Charlie Adelson call the defendant or somebody else? And then who will that person call? As suspected, based on the previously observed communication pattern, the first person that Donna Adelson calls is Charlie Adelson. And one would think that the first thing the defendant — sorry, if one would think that the first thing Donna Adelson would say is, "You know, it's the craziest thing — happened today, some man approached me on the street, handed me an article about Danny being murdered and is demanding money from us." But she never says that. She never says Dan Markel's name. Instead, she tells Charlie Adelson that she needs to talk to him in person about some paperwork that was delivered to her that involves the two of us, and that he should know what she's talking about. Donna Adelson says this TV is probably about $5,000. Donna —
MS. DUGAN: Adelson tells Charlie Adelson that the man who approached her mentioned an ex-girlfriend.
MS. DUGAN: Donna Adelson never says which ex-girlfriend.
MS. DUGAN: She never says Katherine Magbanua's name to Charlie Adelson in that phone call.
MS. DUGAN: She only says that the blackmailer mentioned an ex-girlfriend.
MS. DUGAN: Charlie Adelson never asked whose ex-girlfriend or which ex-girlfriend, who are they talking about?
MS. DUGAN: He never asked that.
MS. DUGAN: After this phone call with his mother, Charlie Adelson then calls the defendant.
MS. DUGAN: He does not call his most recent ex-girlfriend or even the ex-girlfriend before that.
MS. DUGAN: No, he calls this defendant.
MS. DUGAN: And his call to Katherine Magbanua is the only call he makes to an ex-girlfriend after getting this information from his mother.
MS. DUGAN: And he had not dated Katherine Magbanua for a year and a half at this point. He never calls any other ex-girlfriend and never talks to anyone else about the man approaching his mom and trying to blackmail her, except for his family and this defendant, Katherine Magbanua.
MS. DUGAN: He never calls the police to report that his mother has been extorted, and he never calls Garcia or Rivera.
MS. DUGAN: You all will hear the calls between Charlie Adelson and the defendant, and as you listen to these, you'll notice that the two of them are being very careful about what they say.
MS. DUGAN: It's apparent that the people involved in this conspiracy are very smart, and they are immediately suspicious that the other could be wearing a wire or law enforcement could be listening to these conversations.
MS. DUGAN: Next, Charlie Adelson and the defendant met in person at a restaurant called Dolce Vita, and while they sat at their table in this busy, noisy restaurant, an undercover FBI agent sat at a table nearby. The agent had a hidden camera and recorded the conversation. Their conversation can be very difficult to hear at times. Experts have tried to clarify the recording as much as possible and have succeeded in taking out most of the background noise, but the defendant was speaking very softly and her voice is still extremely difficult to hear. However, Charlie Adelson's voice is deeper, it's lower, it's a little louder, and it can be heard. In the recording, we hear him discussing with her whether the man who walked up to his mother could be an undercover police officer or someone trying to blackmail them.
MS. DUGAN: And if it's a blackmailer, is it just somebody trying to make a quick buck, or is it somebody who knows information?
MS. DUGAN: And you'll hear on the recording that Charlie Adelson reassures the defendant that if it's the police, that's a good thing. Charlie Adelson thinks that if it's the police, that means the police don't have enough evidence to charge anyone. In fact, Charlie Adelson tells her, "If they had any evidence, we would have already gone to the airport." He starts giving her some legal advice. He says, in order to prove someone committed a crime, you have to be able to put the person at the scene at the time the crime was committed — which, unfortunately for the defendant and Charlie Adelson, is not an accurate statement of the law, as you'll see in the jury instructions.
MS. DUGAN: It's important to note that at the time this conversation is taking place, no arrests had been made at this point of Garcia, Rivera, or of anyone.
MS. DUGAN: The only thing that the police had released to the public at that point was a photo of the Prius that was seen fleeing the scene, and it was the Prius that Garcia and Rivera had rented and used the day of Dan Markel's murder. So the only thing police had ever put out there is a photo of the Prius. Police knew at this point that Garcia and Rivera had rented the Prius, but the public didn't know that — the public only had a photo. And you'll hear Charlie Adelson give the defendant several analogies about rental cars being used to commit crimes in this recording. He reassures her that if her DNA is found in a car, all that means is at one point she sat in a car, and that if that car was later used to commit a crime, police can't prove that just from her DNA being in a car.
MS. DUGAN: Charlie Adelson says that if a rental car is found that was at the scene of a crime, police also have to prove who was driving it at the time of the crime.
MS. DUGAN: And he gives her a very interesting hypothetical of her renting a car in Miami, someone asking to borrow it, driving to Orlando to commit a robbery, and how she would be innocent in that hypothetical because she wasn't in the car at the time of the robbery.
MS. DUGAN: So you all will be able to listen to these conversations and decide for yourselves whether Charlie Adelson was trying to reassure the defendant that, you know, even if police are able to identify who rented that Prius that police had put out to the public as a photo of the car fleeing the scene, they still wouldn't have enough evidence to hold anybody responsible for the murder. Charlie Adelson continues to reassure the defendant about the lack of evidence. He lets her know that, basically, as long as they stay quiet, they don't have anything to worry about. And he does that by explaining to her that crimes are tough to prove unless someone actually witnessed the suspect commit a crime, or a suspect makes a confession, or a suspect is caught on a wire talking about the crime.
MS. DUGAN: And at one point, Charlie Adelson points out that, you know, the money hasn't been used to buy anything flashy that would draw the attention of police. Charlie Adelson does this by asking her, "Let me ask you a question — when everybody was there the next day," and then he asks her about the money, and then he says, "It's not like you're driving around in a Bentley or cruising around in a mega yacht." And you all will hear during the course of this trial why those statements are important — why the question about the money and the next day is particularly important — because the evidence will show that the defendant traveled to Charlie Adelson's residence the night of the murder, she picked up payment for the murder, the one hundred thousand dollars, and delivered payment to Garcia and Rivera the next day, the day after the murder. When discussing the possibility of whether there is actually a gangster here trying to blackmail his family, Charlie Adelson says, "Whoever this person is knows information." Charlie Adelson says there are two ways of dealing with this guy.
MS. DUGAN: They could call the police — they could do that — but then the guy blackmailing them would be charged with trying to blackmail his family, and the blackmailer would start talking, and he would start calling out the defendant's name, and then police are going to be asking questions about what happened. The other option is to pay him, but let him know that this is a one-time thing, and try to scare off the blackmailer by saying, "If you come around again, we're going to go to the police." So Charlie Adelson gives the defendant very precise instructions to call the number that the blackmailer gave them with the article of Dan Markel and tell the blackmailer, "My friends," meaning the Adelson family, "my friends have no idea what you're talking about."
MS. DUGAN: "And I don't have any idea what you're talking about either."
MS. DUGAN: "But the name of the person who's incarcerated — that name you said does sound familiar, so I'm going to give you the money as charity to help the less fortunate. But don't contact these people again, or they will go to the police." And Charlie Adelson said he would give the defendant $5,000 to pay off the blackmailer. Charlie is concerned throughout this conversation that this guy is not going to go away — that he's going to keep coming back for more and more money.
MS. DUGAN: And Charlie Adelson starts to let the defendant know what Sigfredo Garcia needs to do.
MS. DUGAN: Charlie Adelson lets the defendant know that he is willing to pay whatever it takes for this guy to be killed.
MS. DUGAN: Charlie Adelson tells her that this guy is — and excuse my language, but I'm going to say what Charlie Adelson said in the recording.
MS. DUGAN: "This guy is fucking with Sigfredo Garcia's wife," meaning the defendant.
MS. DUGAN: "He's fucking with him, and you better kill him, or he's going to be a big problem."
MS. DUGAN: "He knows who you are."
MS. DUGAN: Charlie Adelson says, "If he can't do it, have someone else do it."
MS. DUGAN: Charlie Adelson says, "So help me God, if they fuck with my family, it's going to be Nazi shit, because this will be done. I mean, Katie, I don't care what I spend." During this conversation, Charlie Adelson never says Sigfredo Garcia's name. He only refers to him as "he" and "his." But the evidence will show that Charlie Adelson was talking about Sigfredo Garcia here and that that's what he wanted Sigfredo Garcia to do. Because next, Charlie Adelson checks with the defendant to make sure that Garcia has no hard feelings towards him, no reason that he wouldn't do this. He says, "I have you on salary. You'd think he'd be happy about that."
MS. DUGAN: He says, "Our paths never crossed. I wasn't in the picture when you and him were together."
MS. DUGAN: Meaning, Charlie Adelson didn't think he and Katie's relationship had any overlap.
MS. DUGAN: With Katherine Magbanua and Garcia's relationship.
MS. DUGAN: After hearing that Charlie Adelson wants someone killed and is willing to pay whatever it takes to get it done, you can't hear much of what the defendant says, but you can tell that her tone doesn't change. She doesn't yell, "Whoa, whoa, what?" She doesn't hop up from the table and get up and run out of the restaurant.
MS. DUGAN: Instead, the defendant then asks Charlie Adelson — she says, "Help me out."
MS. DUGAN: And Charlie Adelson says he doesn't have to tell her the things that he'll do for her — he shows her what he does.
MS. DUGAN: She doesn't have to ask him for anything. He looks for things to do for her. He helps out when it's somebody's birthday.
MS. DUGAN: He helps her with her car problems. She doesn't have to ask. He looks for ways to help her.
MS. DUGAN: And throughout Charlie Adelson's conversation with the defendant, Charlie Adelson would catch himself saying something a little incriminating. Like, at one point he says, "Why would this guy go to my mom? Why not go to me? That makes me think they only know part of the story."
MS. DUGAN: But then immediately says, "But of course I had nothing to do with this. You know, I don't know — I don't know anything about this." Because he was very paranoid that the police could possibly be listening to these conversations, which was a valid concern, because they were.
MS. DUGAN: What you won't hear in this recording is any explanation by Charlie Adelson to the defendant of why the police would be running an undercover operation on his family, or why someone would be blackmailing his family. Charlie Adelson never has to explain that to the defendant, even though it seems like that would be the first thing that an innocent person would want to know, and that we would hear an explanation for that. After meeting with this defendant, Charlie Adelson called Donna Adelson to let her know that everything is fine.
MS. DUGAN: The defendant then asks Sigfredo Garcia to call the number from the paperwork.
MS. DUGAN: And you'll hear a number of calls between the defendant and Sigfredo Garcia, and one in particular where she voices concern because what the blackmailer has said is getting too detailed.
MS. DUGAN: You'll have an opportunity, as I said, to hear these calls from this undercover operation.
MS. DUGAN: And when you listen to these calls, you'll see, first of all, how information flows from Donna Adelson to Charlie Adelson, from Charlie Adelson to the defendant, from the defendant to Sigfredo Garcia. And in these calls, you'll hear the parties talking, and they're going to be using words like "TV" and "false leads," "listings," "properties," "clients," "reliance," "relationship advice," "patients," "board of dentistry" — all these different terms that are normal terms, but they're used in context that, if you're listening to the conversation, don't really make sense. And you all are going to determine the facts in this case, and you can decide whether these suspects are actually talking about being blackmailed, or whether they're actually talking about TVs and relationship advice and real estate deals, or whether they're actually talking about being investigated by the police and are talking in this code in case law enforcement may be listening. Throughout these calls, Donna Adelson, Charlie Adelson, the defendant — they're all hopeful that this blackmailer is actually essentially law enforcement just trying to get information.
MS. DUGAN: They think that if it's law enforcement, that means that the police don't have enough to bring charges — they're just trying to get information, they're just doing a fishing expedition, versus the other possibility, which would be much worse for them: that the Adelsons and the defendant are being blackmailed by someone who actually knows information about their roles in the murder of Dan Markel and may tell police what they know.
MS. DUGAN: So, after this undercover operation, Luis Rivera and Sigfredo Garcia are arrested.
MS. DUGAN: They're charged with the murder of Dan Markel.
MS. DUGAN: Luis Rivera ended up cutting a deal with the state to provide information about the murder of Dan Markel and the people responsible for it.
MS. DUGAN: Rivera told law enforcement that he was hired by Sigfredo Garcia to help kill Dan Markel.
MS. DUGAN: Rivera described how Sigfredo Garcia told him that this defendant, Katherine Magbanua, had set up a job for them in Tallahassee, and it was going to pay a hundred thousand dollars, with Rivera's cut being $35,000.
MS. DUGAN: Rivera told law enforcement that the job was to kill a guy to help the Adelson family — specifically Wendi Adelson — get her kids back.
MS. DUGAN: Rivera explained that he and Garcia — he's telling law enforcement this — he and Garcia actually made two trips to Tallahassee with the intent of killing Dan Markel.
MS. DUGAN: The first one was a month before the murder, in June of 2014, and the second one was when Dan Markel was ultimately killed in July of 2014.
MS. DUGAN: Rivera said that for the June trip, he bought a gun off the street, Garcia rented the car, and they drove to Tallahassee. They did some scouting on Dan Markel's residence while they were here, but they ultimately could not get the job done that trip, and they ended up going back to Miami.
MS. DUGAN: Rivera said he asked Garcia, "You know, who knows that I'm with you? Who knows we're up here doing this?" And Garcia assured him that only the defendant knows. During the first trip to Tallahassee, Garcia showed Rivera a piece of paper with a picture of the man that they were hired to kill, and Rivera overheard phone calls between Garcia and this defendant during the trip, which included the defendant instructing him what needed to be done, and saying things like, "Make sure you do everything right, don't do anything stupid, and call me when you're done." After hearing this, law enforcement began to further investigate, and they looked for evidence that could corroborate what Luis Rivera was saying. They checked to see whether these calls took place, whether the meetings took place. Luis Rivera also told them lots of kind of small details about their time in Tallahassee, and law enforcement looked for evidence to corroborate that as well.
MS. DUGAN: First, police checked the cell phone records. They saw evidence that corroborated Rivera's information about the June trip. In fact, cell phone locations showed that the defendant helped Sigfredo Garcia rent the car for their June trip to Tallahassee, and showed that the defendant and Sigfredo Garcia were in communication throughout the June trip.
MS. DUGAN: On the second and final trip to Tallahassee, which was in July of 2014, Luis Rivera says that the two returned to Tallahassee, this time in that rented Prius.
MS. DUGAN: Rivera says that he and Garcia followed Professor Markel to the daycare, waited for him outside the gym, followed him home.
MS. DUGAN: Garcia got out, shot Dan Markel, hopped back in the car, and Rivera drove away. And I mentioned earlier that the evidence showed that both men had their phones off around the time — turned them off when they were leaving Premier, kept them off until after the murder, once they were already southbound back to Miami. And Rivera said that that was the case, and that the first call though that either of them made after the homicide was once they turned their phones back on, and it was from Garcia to the defendant.
MS. DUGAN: And in that call, Garcia said the job was done. She said, "I know," and Garcia asked about the money. And the defendant said, "Don't worry about the money. I'll get the money. You'll get it tomorrow."
MS. DUGAN: Law enforcement checked the cell phone records and locations, and saw evidence that, again, corroborated what Rivera was saying. The defendant was in communication with Garcia throughout the July trip to Tallahassee.
MS. DUGAN: Sigfredo Garcia did, in fact, turn his phone off the morning of Dan Markel's murder, turned it off again while they were near Gainesville on the way back, and the first call that he made once he turned his phone back on after the murder was to the defendant. Law enforcement — I'm sorry, Luis Rivera — told police that the next day, meaning the day after the murder of Dan Markel, money was delivered to him by Garcia and the defendant, and that the money was packaged in a very unusual way. The money was in stacks of $100 bills that were stapled together. And when police looked at the cell phone evidence, the record showed that the defendant did, in fact, drive from Charlie Adelson's home down to Rivera's home that morning, the day after the murder, which would be consistent with her getting the cash from Charlie Adelson and taking it to Rivera's home.
MS. DUGAN: The defendant repeatedly tried to call Sigfredo Garcia that morning to get in touch with him, and she and Luis Rivera actually called each other a few times that morning too, which you'll see was very unusual. And then the calls between all these parties abruptly stopped when their cell phone locations are all consistent with being at Rivera's place, which is where Rivera said they all met that morning and he received the stapled money.
MS. DUGAN: During this trial, we'll hear that Charlie Adelson had a very unusual practice of keeping his cash in stacks of $100 bills that were stapled together.
MS. DUGAN: And when you consider that the defendant delivered the money to Garcia and Rivera the day after Dan Markel's murder — that next day — Charlie Adelson's question to her about "the next day when everybody was there" in the Dolce Vita recording makes a lot more sense.
MS. DUGAN: Please pay close attention to all of the evidence that y'all see and hear during this trial, and you will see that the defendant is the connection, the link, the middleman between the people who came to Tallahassee to commit this murder and the person or people who were willing to pay to have Dan Markel killed.
MS. DUGAN: This defendant's decision to do what would benefit her in the short term took the life of a brilliant father of two little boys, and caused a lifetime of loss for his loved ones. And at the end of this trial, you will be convinced beyond any reasonable doubt that this defendant is guilty. It is not reasonable to believe that she did not commit these crimes, given all of the evidence that you will hear and see in this case. She's guilty of hiring Garcia and Rivera to come to Tallahassee and murder Dan Markel on Charlie Adelson's behalf.
MS. DUGAN: She's guilty of conspiring with Charlie Adelson and Garcia to commit this murder. And she's guilty as a principal of the first-degree murder of Dan Markel.
MS. DUGAN: Thank you.
JUDGE WHEELER: Thank you, Ms. Dugan.
JUDGE WHEELER: Ms. Kawass.
MS. KAWASS: Thank you.
MS. KAWASS: Good morning, everybody.
MS. KAWASS: May it please the court, opposing counsel, members of this jury.
MS. KAWASS: This is the first opportunity that I have had to speak with you directly, so I wanted to take a brief moment to reintroduce myself to you. My name is Tara Kawass, and I, along with Christopher DeCoste, have the privilege and honor of representing Katherine Magbanua in this case.
MS. KAWASS: Now, I want to be clear from the very beginning, because the State and I can actually agree on two very important points about this case. Number one: Charlie Adelson had Dan Markel killed. We absolutely agree with that. Number two: Luis Rivera and Sigfredo Garcia carried out the hit for Charlie Adelson. We agree with that too. What we do not agree on is whether or not Katherine Magbanua knew about a plan to have Dan Markel killed.
MS. KAWASS: That's the only thing we don't agree on.
MS. KAWASS: Now, we don't have a burden in this case. I know you guys remember, because we went over this over and over and over again in jury selection, that we don't have a burden, and the burden completely rests on the State.
MS. KAWASS: But Mr. DeCoste and I are going to have to do something very different in this case.
MS. KAWASS: We are going to prove to you beyond any doubt that Charlie Adelson conspired directly with Sigfredo Garcia behind Katie's back to have Dan Markel killed.
MS. KAWASS: The only question that you are all going to have to answer at the end of all of this evidence is, did Katherine know?
MS. KAWASS: That's it. It's that simple.
MS. KAWASS: Because according to the law and common sense — and I'm sure the State will get up here and agree with me as well too — if she did not know, she is not guilty on all three counts.
MS. KAWASS: It's that simple. They won't disagree with what I just told you, because that's the law.
MS. KAWASS: Now, with that said, let's talk about how it is that we ended up in a courtroom where an innocent mother of two children is being accused of a crime she had absolutely nothing to do with.
MS. KAWASS: Now, before we start, I want to make sure that everyone has their notepads and pens. Yes, everyone has them, perfect, okay? Because I am going to be encouraging you to take notes in this case throughout the course of this trial. Because the mountains of evidence — you are going to need to listen to the specifics, because the evidence of her innocence is in the details.
MS. KAWASS: There are thousands upon thousands of communications in this case.
MS. KAWASS: There are call detail records, phone records over the course of years. There's wiretap recordings, over 400 of them.
MS. KAWASS: There is even a secret covert undercover FBI operation that Ms. Dugan went into great detail about.
MS. KAWASS: The State even used the media in this case, as you heard her say, to selectively release certain information to the public, all the while listening to Ms. Magbanua's phone to see if she would say something that would incriminate her even a little bit.
MS. KAWASS: But with all those recordings, wiretap conversations, hours and hours of surveillance, you will see that every single action she took, every word that came out of her mouth, actually proves to you that she had no idea what was going on. The only evidence that the State is going to present to you in this courtroom from that witness stand that has direct evidence that Ms. Magbanua is guilty are the words of the convicted Latin King gang member murderer Luis Rivera. But members of the jury, as we talked about in jury selection yesterday, this is precisely why all of you are sitting here today. The final word isn't up to the State. The final word isn't up to the judge. It is up to all of you, each one of you 14 members of this community who have been selected because you promised you can look at this case, look at the evidence objectively, and leave all of your preconceived notions about this case at the door. That is precisely what it is that we are asking you to do — to look at the evidence, their evidence that they gave to us. Because that's the problem with this case, members of the jury. This is how we ended up here, with an innocent woman being charged with a crime she didn't commit. You will see that the State has been pushing their theory that she's the go-between for the past eight years. That's a very, very long time to be married to a theory. It was longer than the time that Wendi Adelson was married to Dan Markel.
MS. KAWASS: But at the end of this, members of the jury, you are going to see that the only people who involved Ms. Magbanua in this homicide was the FBI and the police.
MS. KAWASS: That wiretap, undercover, covert operation that they did — the moment that they said her name, they planted her in the middle of this investigation. Had they not said her name, all of the conversations would have been completely different, and we wouldn't be here today. Now, I am going to tell you this morning, and to anybody who is listening and watching, how and when Charlie Adelson conspired directly with Sigfredo Garcia to have Dan Markel killed. A little over ten years ago, Wendi Adelson, a young law student at the University of Miami, met a Harvard lawyer by the name of Daniel Markel.
MS. KAWASS: Now, Miami is Wendi's hometown.
MS. KAWASS: That's where she was born. That is where she grew up. That is where her family is.
MS. KAWASS: And as the State said — 100% agree — she has a very tight-knit family.
MS. KAWASS: She does have two brothers. One's Robert, and the other one is Charlie. She is the baby of the family.
MS. KAWASS: And Donna and Harvey, her parents, ran a dental practice in South Florida. Her brother Charlie was also a dentist. Now, from the outside looking in, you would have thought that Wendi Adelson and Dan Markel were a match made in heaven — a young, beautiful couple, both well-educated lawyers, who came together by, yes, meeting on a dating app. And at some point Dan Markel — he applied for a teaching job at the University of Miami, where Wendi lived, but unfortunately he wasn't offered the position. He was offered a position at the law school right here in Tallahassee, at the prestigious Florida State University College of Law. It is one of the top-ranking law schools in Florida. Now, Tallahassee is a picture-perfect place for a young couple to start a family, a vast difference from the fast-paced Miami that Wendi was used to and apparently loved very much. This is a world that Wendi grew up in. But after graduating from UM, Wendi and Dan had to move to Tallahassee for the job.
MS. KAWASS: And this is where they started their family.
MS. KAWASS: They ended up having two small boys, who were not only the apple of their parents' eyes, they were the apple of their grandparents' eyes.
MS. KAWASS: One thing that everyone can agree on in this courtroom — Dan Markel lived his life for those boys.
MS. KAWASS: He adored being a father.
MS. KAWASS: And every single person that knew him that is going to take that stand will tell you how much he adored being a father, and he loved those boys. Another thing you are going to hear over and over again is that Wendi's family has a very strange dynamic. They are very overprotective of her. They are extremely involved in every aspect of her life, including her marriage to Dan Markel. In 2012, Wendi decided that she no longer wanted to be married to Dan.
MS. KAWASS: And so when Dan Markel was on a business trip, she packed up her things and her children and headed to South Florida.
MS. KAWASS: She left the divorce papers on a mattress in the house.
MS. KAWASS: That is what Dan Markel had to come home to after his business trip.
MS. KAWASS: Furniture, gone.
MS. KAWASS: Clothes, gone.
MS. KAWASS: Wife, gone.
MS. KAWASS: Boys, gone.
MS. KAWASS: One swoop, she had taken everything away from him.
MS. KAWASS: But if she thought that Dan Markel was going to give up on being a father, she had another thing coming.
MS. KAWASS: Dan Markel was a brilliant legal scholar, so he did what he did best. He took it to court.
MS. KAWASS: And even though the legal battle was grueling at times, he was successful in getting the court to order that Wendi come back to the only home that those boys knew, Tallahassee, so that they could be close to their father.
MS. KAWASS: Wendi and her family were not happy, and so the legal battle dragged on and it started to get nasty.
MS. KAWASS: In early 2014, the legal battle took a turn.
MS. KAWASS: Dan Markel moved the court to prohibit Donna Adelson from having unsupervised contact with her grandsons and that she couldn't be alone with them. That is what Dan Markel was requesting.
MS. KAWASS: This put Donna Adelson into a state. Unless — that, three weeks, less than three weeks before the matter was to be decided before a judge, he was murdered in cold blood in his driveway in broad daylight after coming home from the gym. Within hours of this murder, the Tallahassee Police Department already had the name and the motive of the person who was behind this: Charlie Adelson. And who gave them their first lead? None other than his sister, Wendi Adelson, when she tells detectives, "Oh yes, my brother made a comment once as a joke that it was cheaper to hire a hitman as a divorce present. I looked into hiring a hitman, but it was cheaper to buy you this TV." This is what Wendi Adelson is telling detectives within hours of Dan Markel being shot. She sat with them for hours. It's all recorded. There's video of the whole thing. Now, the rest of the family — Donna, Harvey, and Charlie — were all in Miami at the time.
MS. KAWASS: Wendi was the only one that was in Tallahassee.
MS. KAWASS: Now, you've heard a lot about this man, Charlie Adelson.
MS. KAWASS: You're going to be hearing a lot about him throughout the course of this trial. Let me tell you a little bit about Charlie Adelson.
MS. KAWASS: He was Wendi's older, single, perpetual bachelor brother.
MS. KAWASS: That's who Charlie Adelson was — interesting character, to say the least. At the time he was in his late 30s, living his best life in Miami. Works during the day, plays at night. No responsibilities, no wife, no kids, and that's how he liked it. He had a modest house in Fort Lauderdale, but then he's the guy that would go and buy and drive a Ferrari. That's the kind of guy that he was. He also had other toys he liked to play with — a boat, a go-cart, and an endless amount of young, beautiful women for him to manipulate and play with.
MS. KAWASS: Because that's what women are to Charlie Adelson — just toys.
MS. KAWASS: And the one toy that he ended up playing with is Katherine Magbanua.
MS. KAWASS: Now, Katherine — she always gets lost in the shuffle. And I want everyone to please remember that she is the reason we're here today. The name of the case is State of Florida versus Katherine Magbanua. And I do not want her to get lost in the shuffle of this mess of a case. She is a woman that sits before you today, charged by the State with first-degree premeditated murder. And the only reason she is sitting here — and Ms. Dugan said it — is because she was dating Charlie Adelson while he contracted Sigfredo Garcia to kill Dan Markel. Now, I get it. I get it. You don't know these people, and you're just stepping back and you're looking at it. The simple answer is, "Oh, she's the link, she must have known." I get it. I get just looking at that, I get it. But if you just look at the surface — remember this from jury selection — and don't look at it from all angles, Katherine is the easy answer. She is the link, she's the reason these two worlds collided. But just because she is a reason that both of them know each other, it doesn't make her guilty of murder. Charlie Adelson met Katherine in late 2013, when he walked into a dental office in South Florida. She was working at the front desk, and he was a periodontist who would travel to South Florida to perform his specialty at different offices located across three counties: Broward, West Palm Beach, and Miami. Now, Magbanua at the time had recently broken up with her long-time boyfriend. You heard about him — Sigfredo Garcia. He is the father of her children, and a few months before Charlie Adelson walked into her life, she had ended things with Sigfredo. They had been together for 10 years. All of the witnesses, the State's own witnesses, are going to tell you that they were constantly breaking up and getting back together, and the source of their relationship problems was Sigfredo Garcia. He just could not stay away from temptation.
MS. KAWASS: Cocaine, alcohol, and girls. And in Miami there's an unlimited supply of all three. And Katie did not stand for that around her children — that lifestyle. No, she had two young kids. She had had enough. So finally she kicked him out the house — for kids, ended it, it was over. All of the State's witnesses are going to tell you that they were not together. Four months later, Charlie Adelson walks into her job and immediately asks for her number, and he puts the charm on. And he starts pressuring her and asking her, calling her, gets her number from somebody else so that they can go on a date. And for Katie, who's newly single, who hasn't been with anybody else for the past 10 years — this is perfect. A nice little distraction. I've got two small kids, so I don't have that much time on my hands, and this is just a single bachelor who's not looking for anything serious. So this was perfect for Katie. And you're going to hear something about Charlie Adelson: when he wants something, especially when it comes to the ladies, he will charm and talk his way into getting whatever he wants. And he loves to talk. You're going to hear it for yourself. He literally can't shut up. And the State's witnesses will tell you — oh, wait, sorry — um, you will hear that, yes, the evidence will show you that Charlie Adelson has been described as a master manipulator, someone who uses people to get what he wants, even without them knowing. Now, the other evidence that you're going to hear in this case, which is the most important, is you're going to hear that at the time, right before the homicide, Sigfredo Garcia was actually stalking Katie.
MS. KAWASS: He would — he knew she was dating a dentist. All of the friends knew that. "Oh, she's dating somebody from her job." And he was not happy about that. The State's own witnesses themselves are going to tell you that he would wait outside Katie's house and watch as she got into cars and go on dates without her knowing. And Charlie knew all about Katie's father of her kids, Tuto, Sigfredo "Tuto" Garcia, because she complained to him all the time that Sigfredo couldn't get his act together.
MS. KAWASS: He was always on drugs and wouldn't help with the kids. And she also knew that he had some very unsavory friends in his life.
MS. KAWASS: Charles knew all of this. So this is where it gets important, members of the jury. And you will see that this timeline is exactly what happened in this case.
MS. KAWASS: February 14th, 2014, Valentine's Day, Dan Markel files a motion for protective order against Donna Adelson, requesting that she not be allowed to have unsupervised contact with his sons.
MS. KAWASS: This of course devastates Donna and Wendi. The court set the hearing for May 15th.
MS. KAWASS: A month later, it just so happens, Sigfredo Garcia follows Katie when she leaves her apartment to meet Charles for dinner.
MS. KAWASS: He was watching them as they sat outside a restaurant having dinner, and she had no idea that Sigfredo was watching.
MS. KAWASS: Katie then left to go home because she has kids to take care of, and Charles leaves South Beach to now drive up to his Fort Lauderdale home in his — not black Lexus — burgundy Lexus.
MS. KAWASS: This is when Sigfredo Garcia confronted Charles about Katie, and for Charles, an opportunity had now fallen directly into his lap.
MS. KAWASS: You want her back, Katie?
MS. KAWASS: No problem.
MS. KAWASS: "I'll give you $100,000 in cash, and I'll leave her alone if you do this for me." God only knows what Charles Adelson told Sigfredo Garcia about Dan Markel.
MS. KAWASS: He probably even said to him, "Or you could get someone to do this for me."
MS. KAWASS: The deal was hatched in that moment.
MS. KAWASS: And just so you know, the State and the FBI were able to get a copy of Charles Adelson's iCloud account in this case from the year 2012, I believe, all the way up to 2016. And I am talking about every text message, every instant message, every WhatsApp message, even the conversations that he tried to delete — it's all there. So the very next morning, after Charles and Sigfredo have met the night before, what does Charles do? Because this is how he is, and he needs to cover all his bases. He actually reaches out to Katie to check if Sigfredo has told her about what happened the night before, and the texts are going to show you she had no clue. She was even confused about why he was asking her about this. Then in April, less than a month before the court date — the court date is May 15th, and right around the time of Wendi Adelson's birthday — Sigfredo slips up and he leaves his phone unattended while he is visiting Katie and the kids. Katie goes through his phone and actually sees Charlie's cell phone number in one of Sigfredo Garcia's phones. You're going to hear that Sigfredo Garcia and Luis Rivera both had multiple phones — the phones that they have the call detail records for, and burner phones, which are phones that you cannot track.
MS. KAWASS: What does Katie do when she sees Charles Adelson's phone number inside her ex-boyfriend's phone?
MS. KAWASS: "Did Tuto call your phone? It's right there in black and white."
MS. KAWASS: Then she says, "No, I'm serious."
MS. KAWASS: "Is your cell phone number online?" And what does Charles Adelson do to her?
MS. KAWASS: He lies to her.
MS. KAWASS: Says no.
MS. KAWASS: In May, less than a week before the hearing on the motion, Wendi Adelson substitutes her counsel on the hearing. What does that cause? A delay. So now that hearing date, which was right there, has now been moved to August 7th. Charles has only a few months now to make sure that the job is done. The evidence is actually going to show you that in the June trip, it was only Luis Rivera who traveled up to Tallahassee — no Sigfredo Garcia — on his own to do the scouting trip, and something spooked him because the homicide didn't happen, and he comes back down to Miami.
MS. KAWASS: Then on July 1st, about two weeks before the murder, Sigfredo does it again, and he stalks Katie as she is going out on a date with Charlie. And I'm not just telling you this — this is the evidence that is coming from the State's own witnesses.
MS. KAWASS: And Sigfredo, when he sees that Charlie is still with Katie, he is pissed. So what does he do? As they're trying to drive off in the burgundy Lexus to go on their date, Sigfredo Garcia cuts them off, jumps out of the vehicle, and runs up and tries to confront Charles. Charles doesn't even roll down the window. He just backs up and tries to get out of there. He's terrified of Sigfredo. And what does Sigfredo Garcia do? Sigfredo Garcia directly calls the Adelsons.
MS. KAWASS: There is no question in that. They like to say that Ms. Magbanua is the only link. She is not.
MS. KAWASS: Sigfredo Garcia — there is a phone call that he calls directly, no conduit, no in-between, the Adelsons. And why is that phone call so important? Because that is the phone call that cracked the case for Tallahassee Police Department.
MS. KAWASS: When they did the tower dump, when Dan Markel was murdered, that's the number that came up. So what they did is they go and look at the Adelsons' phone numbers and go, "Wait a second, why is this phone number around the time of the murder on the Adelsons' phone records?" This has nothing to do with Katie — Sigfredo and the Adelsons.
MS. KAWASS: Two weeks later, after that incident — two weeks — Dan Markel is murdered in his driveway by Luis Rivera and Sigfredo Garcia, less than a month before the scheduled court date.
MS. KAWASS: Luis Rivera and Sigfredo Garcia are paid by Charles in cash. I know Ms. Dugan came up here in opening and says there's going to be evidence that she went to Charles' house and that she's the one that did it.
MS. KAWASS: This is all speculation and inference.
MS. KAWASS: Nothing directly proves that. When they say the evidence is going to show that Ms. Magbanua drove up the night before, what she fails to tell you is, it shows that she's driving up north, and then her phone dies.
MS. KAWASS: And you know who else lives up north, near Charles Adelson? Her entire family.
MS. KAWASS: They want you to speculate that that is where she went.
MS. KAWASS: Then they want you to speculate the next day — the only person that is going to say that she delivered money, the only person they're going to bring: Luis Rivera. That's the only evidence.
MS. KAWASS: Now, you also need to look — I know they mentioned the spike in the money.
MS. KAWASS: Right after Charles gives Sigfredo Garcia and Luis Rivera the cash — they get the cash now, right?
MS. KAWASS: What do they both do?
MS. KAWASS: Luis Rivera, Sigfredo Garcia — they buy their toys, you know, some bikes and some cars.
MS. KAWASS: But Luis gives his money to his mom, to his sister, to his girlfriend.
MS. KAWASS: None of them have been arrested.
MS. KAWASS: And they will all tell you they didn't ask. "I don't want to know where the money came from. I just took it."
MS. KAWASS: You are also going to see that Sigfredo, who finally had some money that he could now show the mother of his kids — "I'm just not a deadbeat dad, I can help you out" — gives her cash.
MS. KAWASS: And what does Katie do?
MS. KAWASS: Walks into the bank and deposits the cash — with all the cameras, all the records, evidence — walks up there and deposits it into her checking account and her savings account.
MS. KAWASS: She is the only one that does that. There's no money with Charles Adelson being withdrawn from any of his accounts.
MS. KAWASS: There's no money on Sigfredo Garcia and Luis Rivera's side depositing money. The only one who walked into the bank and deposited it was Ms. Magbanua, because she had no idea that it came from the proceeds of a homicide. The next thing — and I was actually hoping, a little part of me was hoping, you know, we spoke in jury selection about how the justice system is broken and all of that, and you know certain things are put into place so that you as jurors can be ensured that you're hearing everything right. The government has a duty — they have a duty and a burden to present evidence to you.
MS. KAWASS: Not just some of the evidence, but all of the evidence.
MS. KAWASS: So I was hoping that when Ms. Dugan came up here and tried to present the facts of her case, that she was going to tell you everything — not just the little things that sound and fit with their case.
MS. KAWASS: For example, the cash.
MS. KAWASS: Ms. Dugan failed to mention that Ms. Magbanua held several jobs — several cash-paying jobs. She worked in the service industry. Their own witnesses told them that — this is not something that we came up with. You're going to hear that in 2016, when the FBI and Tallahassee Police Department were investigating this case, right before Ms. Magbanua was arrested, they received information from one of the witnesses that said Ms. Magbanua used to work at this club and also worked at this club, and she received cash payments. Do you know that the FBI and the Tallahassee Police Department waited until 2021, in the middle of the pandemic, to try to go to these clubs and get the records when they were closed? So now, no records. You're also going to hear that she held several other jobs. She worked in a dermatologist's office because she is a single mother trying to take care of her own kids. This is all of their witnesses that are going to tell you that. So whereby they come in here and say, "There's this unusual spike of cash in her account," there is a legitimate explanation for every one of them.
MS. KAWASS: They are also going to present to you in this case the testimony of financial analyst Mary Hull.
MS. KAWASS: What you are going to find out from her is, she's given sworn testimony in this case many times before. And every single time we come back and find out, she's made a mistake.
MS. KAWASS: "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize that this money came from this source."
MS. KAWASS: "My bad." That's their financial expert, who they're going to present to you to try and argue that this is somehow evidence that she received money from a homicide.
MS. KAWASS: I didn't even have these other things that I was going to address in my opening, but since Ms. Dugan brought them up, I want to make sure you all have the entire story about the facts. Because when they present it the way that they do, it looks bad. I get it.
MS. KAWASS: I would think the same thing too. But that's because you don't have all the pieces to the puzzle.
MS. KAWASS: So, for example, payroll.
MS. KAWASS: The evidence is that Charles Adelson — they actually have all of the text messages where Catherine asks him to put her on the payroll because she needs to have record of evidence so that she can qualify for Medicare.
MS. KAWASS: It's literally there in black and white that this is why she did it. She was getting paid a couple hundred bucks every two weeks.
MS. KAWASS: The State also has recordings that prove that she worked there, but Ms. Dugan never mentioned anything about that. They're just gonna leave that out.
MS. KAWASS: The Lexus — the burgundy Lexus that they're trying to say was payment for a murder — she paid for it. You know how they know? There are recordings of her talking about that. There is also paperwork that shows how much she paid for the Lexus. You're going to also see from the iCloud that this is something that Charles Adelson does. One of his other friends is going to get up here and say, "Oh, he sold me a Range Rover." That's what he does. He acquires cars. He has all these little things that are going on at the same time to try and, you know, scam systems to get money. That's who this guy is, even though he's a dentist. The other thing — and which is most offensive — the breast augmentation. She had that surgery after she broke up with Charles Adelson. She has been saving up to have that surgery since she was in high school. All of their witnesses are going to say that this is what she wanted. Then they're going to tell you, oh, there's some inference that Charles Adelson paid for it. No. They actually went and subpoenaed the doctor's records before she was even arrested. Turned out Catherine paid for it. Every single time they do or make some accusation or attach some form of guilt to her actions, it turns out just to be the opposite. The last thing — the wiretap phone calls. Okay, now that was a very long, convoluted thing that the State got up here and was trying to tell you that you need to assume that this person is doing this and that's what this means. Wipe all of that from your mind, members of the jury. What Ms. Dugan believes Charles Adelson is thinking, or what he meant to say, or what they believe Catherine is doing, is not her place to tell you. I want you to listen to the recordings for you — that's what I'm asking you to do. Listen to it for yourself. Use your ears. Don't have the State Attorney's Office trying to tell you what it is they believe is going on. Because when you actually hear the wiretaps, you are going to see that the only person who sounds like she has no idea what's going on is Ms. Magbanua. The only person who makes any attempt or suggestion to call the FBI — not an attempt, but she's screaming at Charles Adelson to call the FBI, because she can't call the cops because someone threatened her friend's mom — they'd hang up on her. She tells, "Call the FBI." He, on the phone, you're gonna hear him: "No, Katie, you know we just have to kind of find out who this is." You are gonna hear the master manipulator at work, because that's what he does. Now, what is most important: they are only going to play certain calls to you. There are over 400 phone calls, and they are gonna cherry-pick the ones that they think are relevant to their case. And those are gonna be the only ones here. Okay?
MS. KAWASS: Now, they also said that they did this undercover covert operation with the guy walking up to Donna and saying Catherine's name.
MS. KAWASS: Now, I know Ms. Dugan once again comes up here and she's talking to you about the Dolce Vita meeting in the restaurant. And yes, that sounds bad, right? Sounds bad, oh, they meet and they start talking about all these things.
MS. KAWASS: Everything Ms. Dugan said about how that conversation went is incorrect. She does take certain quotes that you can hear, but what she doesn't tell you is that meeting was over an hour long. The entire first half an hour of that conversation, for some reason their expert can't clarify it. They have been trying to clarify this recording for six years, and a month ago, a month before Ms. Magbanua's trial, up comes this clarification.
MS. KAWASS: I was excited. I was like, okay, great. You're going to finally see that she's innocent. But what?
MS. KAWASS: You cannot hear a word Ms. Magbanua was saying.
MS. KAWASS: So she could be saying, why are the cops looking at you? We don't know. She could be asking all these questions. We have no idea.
MS. KAWASS: Why their expert couldn't amplify her voice?
MS. KAWASS: I mean, I'm sure he's going to tell you something, but all you're going to know is that you are going to be hearing a conversation that leaves you with more of a question mark than answers.
MS. KAWASS: You are actually going to hear Charlie Adelson trying to convince Katherine, I need you to call because they said your name.
MS. KAWASS: That's why I need you to call. He gives all these scenarios.
MS. KAWASS: You'll hear on all this is how he operates, because he's a master manipulator.
MS. KAWASS: You will hear the things that he says aren't the conversation of two people in the know.
MS. KAWASS: That conversation is Charlie Adelson using Katherine Magbanua as a pawn to go in to try and find out for him who these people are. He's guilty, but he has no problem sending her in because he knows she has nothing to do with it.
MS. KAWASS: And he has to convince her because Katie's like, why are you asking me to do this? And you'll hear him. You will hear these weird scenarios. So as much as the state would like to think he's talking about this murder, he's not.
MS. KAWASS: You'll hear one thing that's important: you never hear the word "murder," you never hear the word "Tallahassee," you never hear the word "Wendi Adelson," you never hear "Dan Markel" — none of those words you hear, because he's not talking to her about it. And members of the jury, what is even more concerning is the thing that you are going to find — and we talked about this in jury selection — when they did this covert operation, at the time they knew who all the players were. They were ready. They had probable cause at that point to already arrest Garcia, because remember, Garcia's out, Luis Rivera's in federal custody. You think they would have tapped Sigfredo Garcia's phone, right? No.
MS. KAWASS: We'll never know what he said on his phone. You think they'd tap Donna Adelson's phone? No, we're not gonna tap hers, we're not gonna listen. So they only tapped Charlie Adelson's phone and Katie's phone. And then check this out: you think that they recorded all the conversations, all of them, so that you guys would have a nice, clear view and can determine for yourself what went on? No, no.
MS. KAWASS: That also goes through the lens of the police department, which they determine what would be relevant and what would not be relevant.
MS. KAWASS: You see when Ms. Dugan got up here and said, oh, Donna Adelson said an ex-girlfriend called and that the first person he called was Katherine, right?
MS. KAWASS: That's not true.
MS. KAWASS: We had to get Charlie Adelson's — the defense had to get Charlie Adelson's call detail records, because for some reason the state and the FBI didn't get them.
MS. KAWASS: When we looked at the records, he made three other phone calls before he called Katie.
MS. KAWASS: So when you take a look at the evidence, the black-and-white evidence in front of you, members of the jury, you're going to see it isn't what the state is trying to present to you to make it seem this way. Now, what is also very important and telling in this case is, about a month after the murder is committed, Charlie Adelson breaks up with Katherine Magbanua — the girl that he supposedly conspired with to commit a murder — and she was not happy about it. He just ghosts her. You can see in the communications: every day, communicate, communicate. And it is strange — after the murder, it is ghost town. The communications kind of start dwindling. You can see that the person who's trying to maintain the contact is Katherine, but he's kind of "oh, I'm busy," he starts dating other girls, and he gives her the brush off, eventually telling her, you know, "you have too much baggage, so I can't be with you anymore."
MS. KAWASS: Now what does that do, members of the jury?
MS. KAWASS: Open the door, paved the way for Sigfredo Garcia to make an attempt to return to Katherine's life. And it's so sad, members of the jury, because in this case what we have here is Charlie Adelson getting what he wanted, Sigfredo Garcia getting what he wanted, and more importantly Wendi Adelson got what she wanted. Less than four days after he was murdered, she packed up. You're not going to hear any evidence that Charlie Adelson made any attempt to go to the funeral of his former brother-in-law. He stayed in Miami and went to the gym. You are not going to see any communications on his iCloud talking about how awful this is — none of that. That is going to scream to you the person who Charlie Adelson is — the type of person that would involve someone who has nothing to do with anything for his own benefit. Now with all that said and no direct evidence proving that she actually knew or helped kill Dan Markel, I'm sure you're asking then why are we here. Then if you're telling me that all of this evidence doesn't directly prove that she's guilty, then how did we end up in a courtroom? The members of the jury, that's why you guys are here, and this is why the Constitution put 12 or 14 people in this box for you to listen to the evidence objectively.
MS. KAWASS: That's what we're asking you to do.
MS. KAWASS: The evidence is actually going to show you that once law enforcement found this link, this common link between these two groups of people, they were the ones that made a very, very grave mistake.
MS. KAWASS: Instead of presuming Katie innocent, they assumed that she was guilty, and every action that they took to gather evidence after that was with the sole purpose of only finding evidence of guilt and ignoring every piece of evidence that proved that she was innocent. The wiretaps, they followed her around, they had a pole camera outside of her house, listened to every call — everything. This was over a couple of months. They got everything that they could. And you will see, to this very day, members of the jury, they do not have one piece of direct evidence — not one — that says that she knew. The only evidence that they have of that is Luis Rivera. Now I know the state got up here and said, oh, he cut a deal. What is more concerning is that the state got up here and made it seem like they interviewed Luis Rivera and then went back to check if what he said is true. That's not what happened. Actually, that's how you're supposed to do it, but that's not what happened in this case.
MS. KAWASS: He had all of the evidence — the call detail records, their theory, their entire timeline where it says Katie is in the middle. So he knew what they wanted to hear. After all of that is when he tells them his story. And members of the jury, I wish I could stand up here today and tell you what I think he's going to say on this witness stand, but he has changed his story so many times, and the evidence proves that he is lying. I can't even predict what he is going to tell you on the witness stand today. It's probably going to be — who knows what facts he's going to add this time. But the thing that's most important is the only thing that is any kind of direct evidence are just his words. He's actually going to tell you that "I heard Katie on the phone talking to Sigfredo." That's it. That's the only direct evidence, because without that they couldn't even make an arrest against Ms. Magbanua. What you are also going to find is Luis Rivera, the lifelong convicted gang member, murderer, is their star witness. And the deal that they gave him is what you all should be paying attention to, because anybody would say anything to get this deal. He was charged with the death penalty, and the state offered him 19 years — 1-9 — in prison for the murder of Dan Markel. But wait, that might sound like a lot, right? Eh, maybe not enough, but sounds like a lot? No.
MS. KAWASS: Luis Rivera was already serving a 12-year sentence in federal custody. And the state arranged for him to serve his 19 years alongside the 12, so he's serving both sentences at the same time, and get this — in a federal detention facility, not a state prison.
MS. KAWASS: We all know the difference between federal detention facilities and state-run facilities.
MS. KAWASS: He's in Club Fed.
MS. KAWASS: No probation afterwards. Afterwards, literally seven years on top of this 12-year sentence, will probably be released, if not this decade, at the beginning.
MS. KAWASS: And it wasn't until he said, "I heard Katherine on the phone" — that's the only piece of direct evidence — that they were able to make an arrest against Ms. Magbanua.
MS. KAWASS: Now, members of the jury, it's going to be a lot of evidence. Please do not get overwhelmed.
MS. KAWASS: It's going to be witness after witness after witness, and it's going to be a lot. It's going to be lots of phone records, lots of photographs, because this investigation spanned years before any arrests were made.
MS. KAWASS: Well, before any — well, since three arrests were made. Because if you'll see, in 2016, Garcia and Rivera were arrested. In 2016, Ms. Magbanua was arrested.
MS. KAWASS: I'm sure you're all wondering what's going on with the Adelsons, right?
MS. KAWASS: Donna, she's probably at home watching TV, probably watching this trial.
MS. KAWASS: Charlie Adelson — arrested a month ago. A month ago. His lawyer is in here right now, back there watching, taking notes, preparing for whenever Charlie's going to go to trial. Wendi Adelson — the state is going to give her immunity to come and testify in this case for them. That's what's going on in this courtroom, members of the jury. Wendi Adelson is going to get immunity to testify against Katherine Magbanua. You're going to see her for yourself. Watch her, members of the jury, because she thinks she's going to be able to put on a fantastic performance, but that's all it's going to be — because what you are going to see is not only does she have a motive to protect her family, including her brother who is now arrested, but she also has a motive to protect herself. All I ask of you, members of the jury — please, any preconceived notions about what you think you know about this case, leave it at the door. Clean slate. There is a reason why the framers of the Constitution put you guys here, so that you would have the final say and not have members of the government decide whether or not you can take away someone's freedom. It can all be left in the hands of the citizens, so that they can make a collective decision if this grave punishment needs to be put on another person, another citizen, because Katherine Magbanua is a citizen also of the state of Florida.
MS. KAWASS: And as we discussed, their job isn't only to punish guilty people, members of the jury — it is to protect the innocent.
MS. KAWASS: And I implore and I beg you, please, just don't get overwhelmed, just sit down and listen to what comes out of that witness stand. And I guarantee you, at the end of this case, you will see clear as day that Ms. Magbanua did not know, and that she is innocent of these charges. Thank you so much.
JUDGE WHEELER: Thank you, Ms. Kawass. Okay, we're gonna take a short break before we start with our first witness, so the deputy will take you back to the jury room. Again, as a reminder, you can use your phones, but no media reports, no internet searches, and no discussions amongst yourselves with any friends or family members about the case or what you've heard here in the courtroom up to this point, okay? So we'll take about 15 minutes so you can use the facility, stretch your legs, and then we'll be back to start with the first witness. Okay, deputy?
MR. DECOSTE: I do have a new objection with respect to the wiretap — specifically, for instance, a phone call between Charlie Adelson and Donna Adelson, who aren't witnesses.
MR. DECOSTE: It's based on Crawford, but it is an objection that needs to be raised.
JUDGE WHEELER: All right. Are those coming in at this point?
MS. CAPPLEMAN: No, sir.
JUDGE WHEELER: All right. Can we wait until — I mean, that's a different issue. I've already ruled on those. I mean, I've ruled on the — you're talking about the conversations between Charlie Adelson and his mother?
MR. DECOSTE: Correct, Your Honor. And this, again, is just a question of when would be good to address that. So during the government's opening statement, something clicked in my legal mind. I'm like, wait a second, looked at some case on — so I pulled some case off of the court just to address it, to put it on the record. But I do think it's pretty clear, but it can be addressed at any time, it doesn't need to be addressed today.
JUDGE WHEELER: All right, when that witness is going to be called, then I'll take a look at any argument in regards to the admissibility of those statements at that time, okay? Okay, all right. Okay, let's bring the jury in, please.
JUDGE WHEELER: Mr. DeCoste, if you want to send me that case law ahead of time, then at least I'll have it and I can review it even before the issue comes up.
MR. DECOSTE: We'll do. Okay.
JUDGE WHEELER: And just as a reminder to our camera person, sir, while we're in recess, if you could please just either focus on the seal or black out your camera — not have everybody who's attending to their business while we're in recess. And then we'll start back up once we come back for the court. Okay, thank you, sir.