GUILTY FL - Dan Markel, 41, FSU Law Professor, Tallahassee, 18 July 2014 - #8 *arrests*

[Carneceria]

Interesting insight

WCTV legal analyst gives insight on Dan Markel Murder Trial

 

[dizzychick]

just playing Devil's Advocate here on this Saturday afternoon, so here it goes: Is it possible that CA went around KM's back knowing she had a criminal element for an ex and conspired with him and his buddy LR to kill Markel w/o KM even knowing a thing about it? Is this even a possibility? The most of what I could gather as far as the evidence produced at trial was that of LR and we should all know he had every incentive to stir a good story to save his own arse. I think there is a possibility as I heard SG tell KM on a recorded call " Katie the less you know the better"
she acted flustered and clueless as to what was transpiring around her. I also got the impression the CA was accusing KM of being behind the 5K tickle the wire scam the cops played on them. I was hoping she would just flat out ask CA if he thought someone in her family or friends could be behind that shakedown for the 5 grand. Just wondering if we do not know half the real story.

 

[dotr]

Katherine’s brothers?

Doesn't he share success with his poor wife so that she does not allegedly have to steal over a million bucks? speculation, imo.

Samantha Chez-Magbanua (Broward County Jail)

The Dan Markel Case: A Helping Hand For Katherine Magbanua — From A Relative Accused Of Embezzlement?
" Katie Magbanua’s lawyers, Tara Kawass and Christopher DeCoste, claim that she’s been receiving financial help from her family on this front.

Could this include assistance from a sister-in-law — or sister outlaw, if law enforcement allegations are true? The Tallahassee Democrat reports:

Tallahassee detectives are investigating whether Dan Markel murder suspect Katherine Magbanua’s legal fees were being paid, at least in part, by her sister-in-law.

Samantha Chez-Magbanua, who is married to Katherine Magbanua’s brother, was arrested in March in South Florida on charges of embezzling $1.19 million from her employer. She faces charges of grand theft of over $100,000 after her arrest by the Plantation Police Department.
Well over $100,000, according to the police:
For 26 years, Samantha Magbanua worked for Quintana, Lopez, Donoghue & Gonzalez, a Plantation certified public accounting firm. Last September, the owners of the firm became suspicious that she had been stealing money from them when they noticed their general business account had been nearly depleted of funds over several years.

They “noticed hundreds of thousands of dollars had been wired out of the account by Samantha without their permission,” Plantation Police wrote in their report.

In all, 62 wire transfers by Samantha Magbanua were sent to a Miami spiritual healer, Caridad Herrera Cabello, totaling $611,230.

Surprising. One would expect a bunch of accountants to be more on top of their financial affairs.

And one can see why the police are wondering whether some of this money might have been diverted to Katie Magbanua’s legal defense. Six hundred grand seems like an awful lot to pay for spiritual healing."

 

[MsArk]

Just going over some of the evidence in my mind. The recorded conversation between Donna and Charlie after the bump is extraordinary. On April 19th she tells Charlie that she's been approached by a man in the street who has handed her some disturbing paperwork. Charlie asks if its the IRS and she replies, "unfortunately, not now." He asks, "Does it involve me, or other people?" and she takes a long pause before saying " ... well, probably both of us. ... You've probably got a general idea of what I'm talking about." Holy frijoles! Then, in short order Charlie is meeting with KM at Dolce Vita and FBI agent Sanford says that, although the audio recording is poor, he was able to discern Charlie telling KM that if it isn't law enforcement, the person who approached his mom is probably going to need to be killed and if KM can't do it he'll get someone else !!!! Then, following this meeting, Charlie calls his mom and uses euphemisms saying he gave "a friend" some "relationship advice" and everything is being taken care of and not to worry. ... You'll recall that the judge found Sanford couldn't testify as to what is on the tape because he doesn't have specific expertise qualifying him to extract what was said from the admittedly poor recording. However, the judge also indicated such testimony could come in if appropriate foundation was laid. I'm surprised that apparently more wasn't done with the recording. Sanford testified that what he did was spend multiple hours listening to the recording over and over to eventually parse out what was being said. The judge found this wasn't enough foundation because anybody could listen to the tape over and over. We do forensic audio enhancement on occasion ourselves and it is much trickier than CSI and similar shows imply. It may be that there genuinely isn't enough information encoded to be able to enhance the conversation, but I would have expected, at a minimum, that they would have used notch or bypass filters to remove much of the dynamic noise present. My point is that if agent Sanford genuinely was able to make out those portions of the conversation the State should be able to produce a minimally enhanced version that does, in fact, make the conversation more legible. It is such an important piece of evidence I would have expected the State to have a true specialist in digital audio enhancement work with the recording.

BBM-

I bet the state gets an expert next time!

 

[Razz]

Forgive me, but was KM ever attractive? Why would CA date an unattractive woman with 2 children, and a scary looking ex husband? (Especially when he had a bevy of gorgeous brunettes at his peck and call. CA had a plan and the only way he could carry it out was with KM's help.)

 

[TTF14]

Forgive me, but was KM ever attractive? Why would CA date an unattractive woman with 2 children, and a scary looking ex husband? (Especially when he had a bevy of gorgeous brunettes at his peck and call. CA had a plan and the only way he could carry it out was with KM's help.)

I think she was really pretty when she was made up and even in the one picture of her that is probably her driver's license photo.

P.S. Not trying to be a grammar nazi, but I can't resist since it's so apropos.... it's "beck and call" not "peck and call" but "peck and call" seems quite right for CA!

 

[vislaw]

just playing Devil's Advocate here on this Saturday afternoon, so here it goes: Is it possible that CA went around KM's back knowing she had a criminal element for an ex and conspired with him and his buddy LR to kill Markel w/o KM even knowing a thing about it? Is this even a possibility? The most of what I could gather as far as the evidence produced at trial was that of LR and we should all know he had every incentive to stir a good story to save his own arse. I think there is a possibility as I heard SG tell KM on a recorded call " Katie the less you know the better"
she acted flustered and clueless as to what was transpiring around her. I also got the impression the CA was accusing KM of being behind the 5K tickle the wire scam the cops played on them. I was hoping she would just flat out ask CA if he thought someone in her family or friends could be behind that shakedown for the 5 grand. Just wondering if we do not know half the real story.

When you look at all the evidence I believe the possibility isn't really plausible. The complete absence of any communication between CA and LR/SG is particularly telling when you look at how much communication was flowing between CA/DA/KM and the two hit-men. All of the information is flowing to/from KM and then after the murder, as the heat gets turned up on LR, his Jessica begins frantically calling and texting KM telling her to cover her tracks while saying she (KM) knows what is going on. A few days ago I mentioned how the great lawyer Louis Nizer always pointed out that actions have consequences that are natural and appropriate so that jurors need to look for the "smell" of truth. In this case ALL the calls, texts and recorded conversations fit precisely the narrative that KM was the linchpin between SG, LR and the Adelsons. There simply is a complete absence of anything suggestions communications "around her back" as you suggest. The calls on both sides of the murder show precisely how the information was flowing between the parties and it deeply implicates KM.

 

[Gypsy Road]

Forgive me, but was KM ever attractive? Why would CA date an unattractive woman with 2 children, and a scary looking ex husband? (Especially when he had a bevy of gorgeous brunettes at his peck and call. CA had a plan and the only way he could carry it out was with KM's help.)

I don’t know. She’s really unattractive when she’s not made up. JMO.

June U. is a beautiful lady and educated too - and I don’t understand what she saw in CA. June was a beauty pageant girl and won a few titles including Miss Teen Broward.

 

[Gardenista]

Interesting insight

WCTV legal analyst gives insight on Dan Markel Murder Trial

So weird because I've been re-watching Rivera's testimony and I like him too. I keep asking myself why I like him, lol.

 

[dizzychick]

Doesn't he share success with his poor wife so that she does not allegedly have to steal over a million bucks? speculation, imo.

Samantha Chez-Magbanua (Broward County Jail)

The Dan Markel Case: A Helping Hand For Katherine Magbanua — From A Relative Accused Of Embezzlement?
" Katie Magbanua’s lawyers, Tara Kawass and Christopher DeCoste, claim that she’s been receiving financial help from her family on this front.

Could this include assistance from a sister-in-law — or sister outlaw, if law enforcement allegations are true? The Tallahassee Democrat reports:

Tallahassee detectives are investigating whether Dan Markel murder suspect Katherine Magbanua’s legal fees were being paid, at least in part, by her sister-in-law.

Samantha Chez-Magbanua, who is married to Katherine Magbanua’s brother, was arrested in March in South Florida on charges of embezzling $1.19 million from her employer. She faces charges of grand theft of over $100,000 after her arrest by the Plantation Police Department.
Well over $100,000, according to the police:
For 26 years, Samantha Magbanua worked for Quintana, Lopez, Donoghue & Gonzalez, a Plantation certified public accounting firm. Last September, the owners of the firm became suspicious that she had been stealing money from them when they noticed their general business account had been nearly depleted of funds over several years.

They “noticed hundreds of thousands of dollars had been wired out of the account by Samantha without their permission,” Plantation Police wrote in their report.

In all, 62 wire transfers by Samantha Magbanua were sent to a Miami spiritual healer, Caridad Herrera Cabello, totaling $611,230.

Surprising. One would expect a bunch of accountants to be more on top of their financial affairs.

And one can see why the police are wondering whether some of this money might have been diverted to Katie Magbanua’s legal defense. Six hundred grand seems like an awful lot to pay for spiritual healing."

I recall one day going out to lunch with this fairly famous Dallas attorney in the 80's and he was telling me a man walked into their firm with a brown paper bag full of cash. He wanted representation for a huge drug deal he had been busted on. The lawyer said he turned him away cause the money was " dirty" and he could lose it when the state found out he was paid in cash. So I just thought it must be illegal for attorneys to take cash when they know or should have known the money came from criminal means? Is this not true?

 

[Gypsy Road]

So weird because I've been re-watching Rivera's testimony and I like him too. I keep asking myself why I like him, lol.

I’ve pondered this too. Part of it may be that —yes, even though he took a plea deal and is a bad bad criminal, maybe there’s a part of him that wanted to do the right thing. I don’t know. People have many facets to their personalities - and aside from having bad parts, there are good parts in bad people.

 

[dizzychick]

I watched the LR hour and a half confession of rambling about the crime. I think it was during this convo where LR tells the group that SG made a call right after the murder and said to KM " Its done" her reply according to him was " I know". Really? She knew that fast when it took 20 minutes for the paramedics to show up how in the world would KM have had this info that fast? I know bad news travels fast but not this fast people.. Noone seems to have questioned this comment. It is LR embellishing his story that KM ordered and knew about this crime. IMO its BS

 

[Wishbone]

When is Wendi going to pay. She is the reason Dan was murdered and she is clearly involved. On the stand she actually laughed at the prosecutor.

She laughs and says "The state isn't going to decide to arrest me"

 

[Gardenista]

I watched the LR hour and a half confession of rambling about the crime. I think it was during this convo where LR tells the group that SG made a call right after the murder and said to KM " Its done" her reply according to him was " I know". Really? She knew that fast when it took 20 minutes for the paramedics to show up how in the world would KM have had this info that fast? I know bad news travels fast but not this fast people.. Noone seems to have questioned this comment. It is LR embellishing his story that KM ordered and knew about this crime. IMO its BS

I think the theory is that KM knew because WA drove by and let CA know who let KM know.

 

[dizzychick]

Forgive me, but was KM ever attractive? Why would CA date an unattractive woman with 2 children, and a scary looking ex husband? (Especially when he had a bevy of gorgeous brunettes at his peck and call. CA had a plan and the only way he could carry it out was with KM's help.)

because he wanted a connection to the scary side of town where he could access the type that would drive 7 hours and shoot someone they didn't even know for a load of money. Because he wants to reign over her and use her.

 

[vislaw]

I watched the LR hour and a half confession of rambling about the crime. I think it was during this convo where LR tells the group that SG made a call right after the murder and said to KM " Its done" her reply according to him was " I know". Really? She knew that fast when it took 20 minutes for the paramedics to show up how in the world would KM have had this info that fast? I know bad news travels fast but not this fast people.. Noone seems to have questioned this comment. It is LR embellishing his story that KM ordered and knew about this crime. IMO its BS

I, too, found that statement questionable and wondered why the defense didn't push harder on the point.

 

[dizzychick]

I think the theory is that KM knew because WA drove by and let CA know who let KM know.

Oh good one! I would pay 100K to the person that can prove that, wouldn't that be a blessing from God

 

[MsArk]

DBM

 

[Gardenista]

I’ve pondered this too. Part of it may be that —yes, even though he took a plea deal and is a bad bad criminal, maybe there’s a part of him that wanted to do the right thing. I don’t know. People have many facets to their personalities - and aside from having bad parts, there are good parts in bad people.

That might be part of it, but I really liked his demeanor. It's hard to explain.

 

[vislaw]

I think the theory is that KM knew because WA drove by and let CA know who let KM know.

But I don't think we see communication from CA to her that fits that theory, do we?