This summary of the story Rashbaum wants the jury to believe reveals its absurdity:
'The defense theory isn’t just missing pieces. It’s missing borders, a picture and any semblance of glue.'
floridapolitics.com
In the winding defense theory, Charlie spoke too freely in front of bad actors — namely his then-girlfriend
Katie Magbanua — about the stress his sister was feeling through her highly litigious divorce and was then set up by Katie and her gangster associates in a plot to extort money from his family. Rashbaum told the jury that Katie wanted a deeper relationship with Charlie, but that Charlie didn’t want that. And that Katie’s allegiance to Charlie really upset Garcia, with whom she shares two children.
The defense story has a few threads. In one, Garcia hated Charlie. Garcia decided to kill Markel to get Charlie framed for murder so that Garcia could get Katie back all for himself. Somehow, Rashbaum tells the jury, Garcia intentionally called an Adelson phone (
Harvey’s) to plant a connection that could be discoverable by law enforcement. It’s unclear how Rashbaum thinks Garcia believed this plot would work, considering it would result in linking himself to the murder.
In the other thread, Rashbaum claims that Katie herself masterminded this — having heard Charlie’s hit man “joke” and the ability of the family to contemplate a $1 million payoff to Markel. In other words, Rashbaum insinuates, Charlie became enmeshed in a web of extortion and blackmail long after the murder, with the FBI bump becoming a “second extortion” against him and his family.
Rashbaum claims that the extensive wiretapping and the recording of Charlie at Dolce Vita will exonerate his client — and will prove his innocence
(never mind that his defense fought super hard
but unsuccessfully to keep all of these recordings out of trial.
)