Judge Won't Exclude Defense Witness Who Listened In On Testimony

Описание: The judge in Donna Adelson‘s murder-for-hire trial in Tallahassee, Florida, today (Wednesday, September 3, day 8) ruled there was a second sequestration violation by the defense, which means they had a witness sit in the courtroom listening to testimony when they weren’t supposed to.

The witness is Linda Bailey, a family law attorney whom Adelson‘s lawyers enlisted to review the divorce and custody case between Wendi Adelson and Dan Markel.

Leon County Circuit Court Judge Stephen Everett concluded that Bailey’s testimony was not substantially affected by her listening to Adams' testimony. He did this after listening to proffer testimony from Adams outside the presence of the jury.

Adams then began testifying in front of the jury in direct-exam from Adelson‘s lawyer, Joshua Zelman.

05:51 "This is not the first time this has occurred," Assistant State Attorney Georgia Cappleman said.

08:35 Proffer testimony from Bailey

13:02 "The court is going to find there has been a second violation of the rule of sequestration by the defendant," Judge Everett says.

Case background:

Donna Adelson, 75, is accused of orchestrating the murder-for-hire of her former son-in-law because she wanted her daughter and grandchildren to move to Miami.

Adelson is accused of conspiring with her son Charlie Adelson more than a decade ago to hire hitmen to kill Dan Markel, who was a Florida State University law professor and the father of her two young grandsons.

Her defense is that she had no knowledge of what hitmen Luis Rivera and Sigfredo Garcia were going to do, and that prosecutors are only focusing on her hatred for Markel to show she had a motive to want him murdered, when there's no evidence she was actually involved.

Rivera, a former gang leader, is serving a 19-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to second-degree murder and testifying against Garcia, who fired the fatal shots, as well as the woman who linked Garcia to the victim: Katherine "Katie" Magbanua, who was Garcia's on-again, off-again girlfriend and also was in a relationship with Adelson's son Charlie Adelson.

Garcia was convicted in 2019 and Magbanua in 2022.

Rivera also testified in Charlie Adelson's trial in 2023, and Adelson was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. After their son's trial, Donna Adelson and her husband, Harvey, bought one-way tickets to Vietnam. Police arrested her on the jetway at Miami International Airport on charges of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and solicitation of first-degree murder.

Her trial is expected to go through Sept. 5 in Leon County Circuit Court in Tallahassee, Florida.

Donna Adelson's lawyers are Josh Zelman and Jackie Fulford of Tallahassee. Assistant State Attorneys Georgia Cappleman and Sarah Kathryn Dugan are prosecuting.

The judge is Stephen Everett, who is the chief judge of Florida's 2nd Judicial Circuit.
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