The state accused the South Florida periodontist of plotting and funding the killing to help his sister Wendi Adelson elude a contentious custody battle amid her brutal divorce with victim Dan Markel.
www.wctv.tv
Nov 1, 2023
LIVE TRIAL BLOG - AM: What happened after the Dolce Vita meeting? Prosecution plays covert call recordings
Charlie Adelson is on trial for the 2014 murder of his former brother-in-law, Dan Markel
The state is exhibiting evidence collected secretly. Tuesday afternoon, t
he jury watched a covert recording of a meeting between convict Katherine Magbanua and Charlie Adelson at a restaurant called Dolce Vita, which took place in 2016 the day after an undercover agent pretended to extort Donna Adelson, Charlie’s mother.
You can watch those recordings and catch up on the rest of testimony in Adelson’s trial here: see MSM link above
1:35 p.m.: Jury returns
On a phone call with Magbanua, Adelson talks with her about getting a birthday date for “a married man with kids.”
The witness, agent Pat Sanford, noted that Garcia’s birthday was just days after their call.
Charlie smiled a little and shook his head when Cappleman asked him about it.
The state played another call between the two about birthdays.
“It’s my daughter’s birthday, call me. It’s your goddaughter. It’s your goddaughter’s birthday at the end of the month,” she told Adelson, according to call transcripts from the state.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yes,” she replied.
“I got all these people that want me to adopt them,” he said.
“No, you already know my kids - (inaudible),” she replied.
He talks jokingly about some women in his office asking him to adopt them.
“I want to be adopted,” she replied.
“I know,” he said.
“But you don’t want to adopt me. Adopt my kids,” she told him.
Next, the prosecution plays a call between Donna and Charlie. Sanford said the messages came the same day that the undercover agent texted Donna this message:
The agent said the $100,000 is important because that was the reward offered to aid in solving Markel’s murder.
These are some transcripts from that call:
Donna and Charlie Adelson talk on the phone the day of the "bump text."(WCTV)
The prosecution noted that neither Donna nor Charlie suggested telling the texter to go to the police and obtain the reward.
When Charlie heard about the texts, he told Magbanua about it. He told her he didn’t want to her to do anything in response to the message, though.
“You’re just my friend, that’s the only reason I’m going to you,” he told her.
The prosecution is really hammering home these apparently friendly interactions between Charlie and Magbanua in an obvious attempt to poke holes in the defense’s strategy.
A central point of the defense’s argument is that Magbanua was the mastermind of Markel’s murder and extorted Charlie to pay for it. They claim she came to him after Markel’s killing and confessed to her involvement, and then she threatened his family’s safety if he didn’t pay her.
10:50 a.m.: State continues breaking down calls after morning break
The prosecution returned from break and played the call between Magbanua and Charlie after the agent reached out to the Adelson Institute.
She told him she called that number and it was “not working,” and said she was “pissed.” Adelson told his ex that the people know who she is and mentioned her by name, and they know who her family is.
Magbanua said she was scared.
“If someone is messing with you, they’re messing with me. Is someone is messing with me, they’re messing with you.”
Charlie Adelson to Katherine Magbanua
Adelson yelled on the phone to Magbanua, urging him to go to the police. She said she tried to help him, but the phone number didn’t work.
He told her he’d find out if the Adelson Institute had caller ID so he could find the number that called the office. But the caller ID wasn’t working, his mother told him.
“Whatever it is, it’s either somebody’s f*cking with your family or f*cking with my family or f*cking setting us up,” she said.
She told Charlie she already called the number and it didn’t work.
“You go ahead and you find a f*cking phone and you call,” she told him.
So, he did call. The prosecution played that recording next.
“Someone has been calling my family. I’m trying to figure out who it is,” Charlie told the undercover.
The agent told Charlie he was calling the right number.
“Alright, what’s going on?” Charlie asked.
“Well, what’s going on is my brother Tato, okay, my brother Tato has not been taken care of. His family has not been taken care of,” the agent said.
“I don’t know Tato,” Charlie told him.
The undercover told Charlie he knew Tato did a big favor for his family, and he knew that his family was “helping out” Magbanua and Tuto. He told Charlie to “do the right thing” and help “his brother.”
Charlie said he didn’t know what he was talking about.
Under Cappleman’s questioning, the agent testified that Charlie dialed *67 before ringing the agent.
After the exchange with the undercover, Adelson called Magbanua three times, but she didn’t answer, the agent told Cappleman. At some point, however, she got back to him.
During that call, Adelson told Magbanua about his conversation with the person he believed was trying to extort his family. Here are some quotes from the exchange:
“Do the right thing, do the right thing, you know it sounds like a f*cking cop that’s fishing or an investigator or someone playing games,” he told his ex. “He’s coming up with a lot of f*cking details... because I don’t know two of the people’s names they’re talking about, and you may - you may be even the wrong Katie, and then I feel even more like a dumb *advertiser censored**.”
“Supposedly I’m giving money to you and some other other dude and your family. I don’t know these people, never met them, so it’s really interesting,” Charlie said.
Magbanua called Garcia after this.
“So I have some information for you,” she told him. She fills him in on the conversation Charlie had with the undercover, but she doesn’t say Charlie’s name.
“It’s getting too detailed. It’s somebody that, you know, for sure.”
Katherine Magbanua to Sigfredo Garcia
The pair discussed that they all should go to the police because someone is “harassing” them. She tells him to call the number. The pair go back and forth trying to verify the number.
“Just text it to me, man. Text it to me. Just text it to me,” he said.
“No, I don’t want to,” Magbanua said.
Garcia and Magbanua connected later and he told her about trying to call the number. The “blackmailer” didn’t pick up, but he said the voicemail made him seem Nicaraguan.
Adelson previously told Magbanua he sounded like he had a New York accent.
Then, Magbanua called Adelson and told him about getting his voicemail.
“When you call, do you call with a call block?” he asked his ex.
She answered in the affirmative, saying “I know how to block a call.”
“He asked me who I was and I was like, ‘None of your business,’” he said. He continued to say the Adelson family is large, and that he should’ve asked which Adelson he needs money from. Then he could confront that family member, he said.
“My mom doesn’t know who any of these people are, my dad doesn’t know who any of these people are.”
Charlie Adelson to Katherine Magbanua
Garcia texted Magbanua that he called the number three times but didn’t get an answer. He said he didn’t leave a voicemail.
But after that, she called Adelson and told him she called the number three times and left a message in Spanish.
“Whatever it is, like I’m going to handle it, point blank,” Magbanua told Adelson on the call.
“Well, I feel better. I definitely feel better. I apologize for not going and getting you a Hallmark card, but I got a little something, so,” he responded.
He offered to bring it to her, but ultimately he told her to “hit him up” and he’ll give her it.
Later, he called his mother. Most of the conversation was Charlie speaking and his mother agreeing with him.
“Do you notice the one thing, the one thing missing from everything? Never once, never once was there a threat,” he told his mother.
“Without a question, I would be beyond shocked if the family doesn’t hire their own private investigators...
What are they looking to get out of this nonsense?... If it’s money, I’ll be shocked, because the the way you collect money is you go to someone and you tell them what you’re going to do to them and you give them 48 hours and you tell them where to meet somebody...
So I’m thinking for myself, these people aren’t looking for a check. They’re not. What do you think they want you to do? What’s the one thing they want?
They want everybody to start talking. They want you to hand deliver yourself — because they think you know something — but they want you to hand deliver yourself and start talking as much as you can when you walk in...
This is not someone who is dumb, this is someone who is super smart.” Charlie said.
He also mentioned “the amount of time that’s passed is insane,” but didn’t say time that’s passed since what or when.
“When I spoke to dad he said, you know, ‘We don’t, we don’t say anything because the last thing we want to do is aggravate Wendi. She’s been through enough...’
I don’t want to scare her... She was scared from day one, she’s finally done with being scared,” he told his mother.
He and his mother agreed his sister would go to the police.
“My original feeling was to go to the police, but dad said ‘We’ve got to protect Wendi, she will be devastated...’
I think that it’s somebody playing games or fishing... and the person is doing an awful awful job of hiding who they are...
I think it’s a bunch of nonsense,” Charlie said on the call.
After the recording ended, Cappleman noted to the witness that in the call “you hear the defendant finally saying the name Katie to Donna” for the first time. The prosecutor has repeatedly noted that after the bump, the two only mentioned “an ex-girlfriend” until this call.
After the lunch break, the defense will begin cross examining the agent on the stand. He has testified for more than five hours so far.
9 a.m.: Prosecution alleges Magbanua, Adelsons, Garcia spoke in code on recorded calls after “the bump”
We are
back in court and the FBI agent is back on the stand.
The state is reviewing calls recorded between Donna Adelson, Charlie Adelson, Katherine Magbanua and Sigfredo Garcia after “the bump” in April 2016.
Here’s a video of the bump and the calls the jury listened to Tuesday: see MSM link.
In a phone call between Magbanua and Garcia, the prosecution and investigator alleges the South Florida mother was speaking in code to her former common-law husband.
Here is a chart the prosecution created of the alleged code words Magbanua used in several recordings. (see MSM link).
Garcia didn’t pick up on it at first, Assistant State Attorney Georgia Cappleman said. The investigator testified under her questioning that Magbanua asked him to pay for charges for their children’s school.
At first, Garcia seems confused. Magbanua tells him she thinks they owe the school a balance of $65.70, but she can’t remember if it’s $65.70 or $60.57.
You can see a transcript of part of that call here: see MSM link.
The investigators said the amount of money Magbanua asked about was significant because it was the same digits as the last four numbers of the phone number the undercover agent gave Donna Adelson in “the bump.”
That number came up again in another call between the pair later where they were discussing real estate.
Here’s part of that conversation: See MSM link
The agent testified that the number Magbanua said was the correct and complete number the undercover operative provided Donna Adelson: 305-712-6570.
In a phone call between Charlie and Magbanua, Cappleman alleged the pair used terms related to buying a property as code for blackmail.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea. It wouldn’t be a good investment,” Magbanua said on the call.
“You buy the property, and then it becomes a burden for life,” Adelson said. “Every single time, somebody’s gonna keep increasing the amount... It’ll become a burden. It’ll be like a leech that never leaves you.”
An undercover agent attempted to record a meeting between Harvey and Charlie Adelson at Matsuri, a sushi restaurant. While questioning the witness about the recording, Cappleman alluded to the agent being “made,” or discovered by the persons he was trying to observe.
The agent mailed a letter to the Adelsons that said: “MY PHONE IS NOT RINGING SO YOU DON’T CARE ABOUT TATO AND WHAT HE DID FOR YOU. HE KNOWS HE IS F*CKED AND SOON SO WILL YOU.”
Cappleman also played a call between Magbanua and Charlie Adelson where they talk about TV shows and music.
“Does it feel like a lot of tension or an aggressive relationship between these two on this call?” the prosecutor asked.
“No, not at all,” the witness said.
Many calls were exchanged verifying the number. At one point, Garcia told Magbanua, “I believe that was one of the ones that I tried.”
The agent conducted another “bump” by calling the Adelson Institute and asking for Donna to say he needed to hear back from her. An employee reached out to her with his number, and then Donna called Charlie. They played that call.
Charlie told his mother that someone already called him.
“Um, the odd thing is this. That’s the same number you gave me, right?” Charlie said.
She read the number back to him: 305-712-6570
“That’s the same number, and it was called, and no one picked up,” he told her.
“I’m looking into it right now... Let me do this. Let me call somebody... And, but I wouldn’t - Mom, trust me when I tell you I wouldn’t worry at all... And I’ll tell you why, especially - especially because - what do you call it - especially because you know who it is, so let me all someone and take care of it now, okay?”
The agent testified that, in fact, no one had called that number yet.
“What happens immediately after that call?” Cappleman asked.
“I believe he calls Katherine Magbanua, if I’m not mistaken,” the agent responded.
He called her several times, leaving one voicemail saying, “It’s important. Call me.”
Eventually they got in touch.
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