FL - FSU Law Professor Dan Markel Murdered by Hitmen *3 guilty* #16

[vislaw]

If CA is convicted I would bet my house DA gets indicted.

 

[clearskies1]

In Rashbaum's opening statement he made a big deal of saying that Charlie was not close to Wendi. Trying to undermine motive. That claim fell a part quickly when the witnesses testified. I hope GC reminds the jury of that. JMO.

 

[MinnesotaMary]

Sorry, but I haven't been able to catch up on posts as yet.... Thank said, these things stand out to me:
1. Who speaks for shot-in-the-head and then died over the next 14 hours father of two little boys, Dan Markel? Only his mom sits there in the audience--such pain and sorrow I see in her, dear lady.
2. It stuck to me when CA said ~ 'Dan's dead as a doornail. BUT I'M STILL ALIVE It wouldn't do a bit of good if I wind up 'murdered by Latin Kings'. Lord!!! And did any of you notice how much CA is a mega-kerook in his daily life - my impression is that his pal-with-benefits Katie receives/d A Lot of welfare benefits, and sounds like she's on some sort of program where she had to show PROOF she was employed - so CA happy as a clam to fake say she's his employee. The b@@b job!!??? 'Can I put it on your Visa, Charlie?'. Lord!! AND ANOTHER THING: CA had the audacity to TOTALLY fake skream to the pros' about 'I never talk in any code ' - no code - no 'tv' code' .... blah blah blah. EVERYTHING CA and W and ma A' do is in code !! Remember too how the pros' told us how ma A' and W and CA REALLY talk in their daily lives - ---- it's full of the F word, people!!
3. Does anyone think it'd be fair for CA NOT to live in prison? Would it be fair for Katie to be there and the other two, but not CA?? Ma A'??? Daddy A'? Wendy A !?! I feel bad for law enforcement if any of the A's don't receive justice.
4. There is NO WAY in heck that I buy that CA just got hoodwinked by Katie and the father of her kids. There is NO WAY I buy that CA and his 'poor pooor ppppooooor ME - I shot my mouth off about getting Dan Markel OFF'ED!!! and poor boo hoo me I wind up blackmailed and btw too bad but don't cry over rotten eggs - I can't do a dang thing to bring dear Dan back....'.
5. Wendy and driving right up to the crime scene tape like that - Wendy wants us to think she had to drive miles out of her way to some loony liquor store.
6. AND THOSE TEXT MESSAGES THEY DELETED BEFORE TURNING OVER THE FONE!! Wendy and the one about the 'tv set'/ 'present'.
7. And CA and his text message FULL OF CODE about 'bonsai tree'. The one sole thing I DO believe CA was being serious about was his text to Katie about how he bought Dan Markel's co-murderer A PRESENT OF NICE MARIJUANA - that 'I sure get an A+++++ in giving the most wonderful presents in the world'!!!
8. The Range Rover.... 'go out in the boat'..... 'Dad's 70th b'day party'..... 'I know the greatest hidden sushi restaurant - I'll take Wendy'......
9. Ma A' whining on her fone call to the Bump guy - 'you should go get the reward money' !! over and over and over she whines that line. And the nerve of her with all that 'You listen to ME' power-play stuff.

I suggest the jurors lay it all down on old-fashioned PAPER, and NO WAY is there even a morself of reasonable doubt. I believe Katie saying CA believes himself to be 'untouchable' - I think ma A' and Wendy and pa A' all are that way, too.

PS: I haven't been able to watch much of the trial either - is it true there's one more son and he's estranged from their family????? tyia

 

[Mariposa]

Who goes to kill someone for the first time without payment first, and follows someone back to a beautiful neighborhood in the morning, when they potentially could be caught. How would they ever have known who he was or anything about him.

RSBM.

This is such a good point.
1) LR testified that SG had thousands of dollars on hand for the trips to Tallahassee, provided by KM. (For expenses on the trip and cocaine and booze) Is it believable that broke as a joke KM and SG just had that money laying around? That money had to be given to KM by CA. Did KM get asked about that pre murder money on the stand?
2) the way the murder went down was VERY risky for getting caught. SG and LR didn’t creep up on their target in the dead of night or a deserted spot. It was brazen on a residential street on a sunny summer Friday morning. There could have been more people out and about. As it was, the neighbor who called 911 saw the car out his living room window and provided the vital first clue describing the Prius. It was just bad luck he didn’t get a license plate number which would have led to the hitmen much faster. To do something so risky, for two guys with criminal backgrounds but no hitman experience, without knowing they were getting paid for sure? No way

 

[Blue Shakehead]

Charlie knew Katie was “always broke” and that’s how he knew or believed she was not involved in the extortion. If he didn’t pay the $3k a month, he was a dead man.

But he somehow also believed that broke Katie was depositing the checks from Adelson Institute and then immediately pulling out 100% of her checks in cash to then hand over to the ‘real’ extortionists.

In other words, if Katie kept any of the money the Adelson institute to pay for groceries or gas for her car - his life would be in jeopardy because the extortionists wouldn’t be getting their full 3k.

Uh huh. Yeah. Because “how it’s done”, according to extortion expert Charlie.

 

[Weki]

If CA is convicted I would bet my house DA gets indicted.

Why didn’t they charge Donna with Charlie and try them together? To me that’s a slam dunk conviction for Donna. To hear them in the wiretaps as they sit there together in court….

Why would they want to go through a whole separate trial yet again? Makes no sense to me. I don’t think Donna will be charged. JMO

 

[Missyrocks5]

RSBM.

This is such a good point.
1) LR testified that SG had thousands of dollars on hand for the trips to Tallahassee, provided by KM. (For expenses on the trip and cocaine and booze) Is it believable that broke as a joke KM and SG just had that money laying around? That money had to be given to KM by CA. Did KM get asked about that pre murder money on the stand?
2) the way the murder went down was VERY risky for getting caught. SG and LR didn’t creep up on their target in the dead of night or a deserted spot. It was brazen on a residential street on a sunny summer Friday morning. There could have been more people out and about. As it was, the neighbor who called 911 saw the car out his living room window and provided the vital first clue describing the Prius. It was just bad luck he didn’t get a license plate number which would have led to the hitmen much faster. To do something so risky, for two guys with criminal backgrounds but no hitman experience, without knowing they were getting paid for sure? No way

Well said. And agreed. But the state needs to go into detail and show why that's just so ridiculous. Every step of the way to show how ridiculous it is.

 

[Orange Tabby]

"This TV is 5"

—Donna Adelson to Charlie Adelson
in a wiretapped phone convo​

I believe this statement will play a major role in the jury’s thinking about this case.

When a person is faced with a set of facts and asked to choose between two explanations there are many considerations to be made. Plausibility is one. If one explanation invokes aliens, that’s a problem.

But even before higher order analysis like plausibility, most people will ask this simple question: Do both explanations account for all the facts?

If one explanation (call it P) is consistent with all the facts and the other (call it D) can’t explain some of the facts, that is a serious problem for D.

CA can’t explain "This TV is 5". When asked about it under cross-examination by GC he got all huffy and indignantly repeated his claim that there is no code.

But notably he did not explain what "This TV is 5" means, if it is not code. His theory is incomplete. This alone will cause jurors to question the defense explanation, when they have a complete explanation from the prosecution.

Now consider plausibility. References to “TV” abound in this case. Some of those refs, heard again and again by the jury, are explicitly twinned with “hit man”. Many of those refs come up in odd circumstances. A TV is part of WA’s activities the day of and very close in time to the murders. This TV is threaded through the entire family. It was a gift from CA. DA paid for it. Both DA and CA are wittering on about it with WA very shortly before the murder. I believe Lacasse’s testimony will convince the jury that for one reason or another WE desperately wanted corroboration that her TV had serious problems.

I believe the jury will discuss the significance of “TV” during deliberations and find CA’s inability to explain "This TV is 5" to be a serious problem.

TL;DR: Failure to explain the meaning of "This TV is 5" means the defense story does not explain all the evidence against CA. His theory is inferior to the prosecution because of this. It is not a minor problem but rather a serious one because references to TV are a significant and repeated feature of the evidence. The problem with an incomplete explanation is that is a hallmark of a false story. Additionally, this is a strong indication of use of code.

 

[clearskies1]

"This TV is 5"

—Donna Adelson to Charlie Adelson
in a wiretapped phone convo​

I believe this statement will play a major role in the jury’s thinking about this case.

When a person is faced with a set of facts and asked to choose between two explanations there are many considerations to be made. Plausibility is one. If one explanation invokes aliens, that’s a problem.

But even before higher order analysis like plausibility, most people will ask this simple question: Do both explanations account for all the facts?

If one explanation (call it P) is consistent with all the facts and the other (call it D) can’t explain some of the facts, that is a serious problem for D.

CA can’t explain "This TV is 5". When asked about it under cross-examination by GC he got all huffy and indignantly repeated his claim that there is no code.

But notably he did not explain what "This TV is 5" means, if it is not code. His theory is incomplete. This alone will cause jurors to question the defense explanation, when they have a complete explanation from the prosecution.

Now consider plausibility. References to “TV” abound in this case. Some of those refs, heard again and again by the jury, are explicitly twinned with “hit man”. Many of those refs come up in odd circumstances. A TV is part of WA’s activities the day of and very close in time to the murders. This TV is threaded through the entire family. It was a gift from CA. DA paid for it. Both DA and CA are wittering on about it with WA very shortly before the murder. I believe Lacasse’s testimony will convince the jury that for one reason or another WE desperately wanted corroboration that her TV had serious problems.

I believe the jury will discuss the significance of “TV” during deliberations and find CA’s inability to explain "This TV is 5" to be a serious problem.

TL;DR: Failure to explain the meaning of "This TV is 5" means the defense story does not explain all the evidence against CA. His theory is inferior to the prosecution because of this. It is not a minor problem but rather a serious one because references to TV are a significant and repeated feature of the evidence. The problem with an incomplete explanation is that is a hallmark of a false story. Additionally, this is a strong indication of use of code.

Agree. he didn't have logical explanations for several things. Donna driving with HA and texting CA to delete a "birthday" message. CA claimed it was because DA didn't want HA to see it. Really?? As GC pointed out, HA was with DA, not CA, so there was no chance that HA would see it on CA's phone. I'm sure GC will hammer these things in closing.

 

[GordonX]

David Oscar Markus, the attorney for Charlie Adelson, said Magbanua's arrest "smacks of utter desperation." "It's sad that the police have arrested Katie when just last week the prosecution said there was no basis to proceed," he said. "They are trying to pressure a single mom who has no priors by threatening to make her little kids orphans. That's not how our criminal justice system is supposed to work." - October 2, 2016

Police: Magbanua was 'conduit' in Markel slaying

Police suspect a South Florida love triangle provided the guns and money to kill Florida State law professor Dan Markel.

www.tallahassee.com

 

[amicuscurie]

so where's Wendi almost a decade later? Is she in Lowell CI?

Well, a bad strategy for Charlie.

 

[amicuscurie]

I lean towards no arrest of DA. It seems like the centerpiece evidence for CA was the Dolce Vita audio enhancement. He was only arrested once they had that. The other piece would be did KM really say anything that strongly implicated DA, I know the moldy money but, not sure how strong that was. All the other stuff implicating DA the prosecution have had for years. If CA is convicted I don’t think he’ll testify against DA the way KM testified against him.
JMO

The thing that gets me is she was outside his house the night of the murder. Might not be enough to indict, though.

 

[Orange Tabby]

Charlie was struggling, in my view, from the very beginning of cross examination. This is only the 4th question, and he already looks the fool:

GC: Do you agree that the only problem with having an explanation for everything is that there’s just so many explanations?

CA: There’s no explanation. I explained what happened.

 

[vislaw]

I also totally agree with the posts above that Donna's statement "This TV is 5" is beyond huge. We know Charlie has been talking at length with his mom and there isn't a soul who believes that if Donna had an innocent explanation for this Charlie would know about it. Instead, the best he can do is say, "it wasn't code. I wish of all the random words in the world she had chosen another one." That, and the fact that he immediately responds by asking $5,000? tells you everything. He didn't ask "what do you mean? He KNEW what TV meant and he knew 5 meant $5,000. The fact that they couldn't come up with anything for this critical point of evidence underlines how important it is.

 

[justice1960]

I think it’s weird WA didn’t call DM a after seeing the obstruction on Trescott too. Not necessarily bc worried about the kids (I accept she knew they had gone to daycare that day because she had a phone message from DM right after 9am when he said he was going into the gym and would be done at 1030 ). But because she was trying to get in touch with him anyway to have their discussion about registering a child for school. She says in the police interview she called DM at about 11:40 to have that conversation and says she was surprised he didn’t answer. So then less than an hour later she sees that road blocked but never calls him again.

ETA: and whether she said she took that route to deal with sadness over her divorce, or because it was a natural shortcut to ABC liquors (she has given both as explanations for her route), she had no reason to think DM wasn’t home. Wouldn’t he be weirded out of he happened to see her cruising past his house?

DA cut the murder checks. DA talked in code. DA must be arrested. DA needs to be rattled out of bed at 3am, shackled, and sent on a long bus ride north to face justice.

During Jury deliberations or ASAP.

 

[justice1960]

If CA is convicted I would bet my house DA gets indicted.

IMHO. If they hang which I highly doubt...consider this a trial run and try them both together with plenty of time to prepare for their recently invented strategy which they sprung upon the prosecution during opening statements at the 12th hour...either way DA is going to face the music with or without CA. Good work vislaw you present excellent commentary.

 

[tmar]

You are all making some great points. Thanks! I am feeling more positive and optimistic this morning than I was yesterday afternoon/evening.

I also watched CTV last night and saw some of their excerpts from the cross and GC did better than I recalled. Most of their think tank attorneys feel he is going down as well, whatever that is worth. Bottom line, his story is so off the wall and his rehearsed excuses/explanations sound so memorized (who knows the date of a phone call from 8 yrs ago?) that he just can't be believed.

I am still worried about a rogue juror, though, but then again I am always worried about that!

How on earth can CA remember in detail, phone calls etc years ago!
He has studied these for ages memorizing lies to try to fool everyone.
Hope the creep, the entitled 'oral surgeon' goes down as a murderer, in prison with other murderers.
Pay back for DM's life.

 

[Marysmith]

M

How on earth can CA remember in detail, phone calls etc years ago!
He has studied these for ages memorizing lies to try to fool everyone.
Hope the creep, the entitled 'oral surgeon' goes down as a murderer, in prison with other murderers.
Pay back for DM's life.

Right?! To me this is the biggest tell. The details he remembers are impossible!

 

[cottonweaver]

Well, a bad strategy for Charlie.

Everybody seems to think that Willie Meggs was the problem and/or conflicts between his office & TPD. It's not what Wendi did/didn't say in the interview, more as to what wasn't approved by the State Attorney ( IIRC he retired a couple of years later. Much was published about his stubborn caution and conflicts with TPD who wanted a more aggressive approach. Tallahassee Democrat probably best resource for that)

ETA found some old examples, 2016

Tensions flare in Markel case after unexpected document drop

After two years of investigation into the murder-for-hire plot of Dan Markel, prosecutors are unlikely to approve the arrest of his former in-laws.

eu.tallahassee.com

' Meggs: “When you read this stuff, you say these people had him killed. I don’t read it like that,” he continued. “How do we prove this? How do we prove what this officer believes, or thinks or suspects? '

https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2016/09/police-reveal-evidence-tying-adelson-family-to-dan-markels-murder-including-1-million-offer-to-allow.html

Mentour Lawyer & Justice for Dan will also have some more on The Weinsteins ( lawyer) & the Adelsons. Murky

 

[justice1960]

Why didn’t they charge Donna with Charlie and try them together? To me that’s a slam dunk conviction for Donna. To hear them in the wiretaps as they sit there together in court….

Why would they want to go through a whole separate trial yet again? Makes no sense to me. I don’t think Donna will be charged. JMO

IMHO. No statue of limitations...Maybe they would prefer a dual WA/DA trial after they sink CA.