Prior to last week, the South Florida periodontist always claimed he had no connection to the 2014 homicide. But during opening statements, his defense changed course, saying he was was extorted to pay for the crime, threatened to pay or risk his family could be next.
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10/30/23 -- LIVE BLOG, TRIAL DAY -3 (AM)
Monday morning, Rivera returned to the stand for questioning by the defense. Next was
Magbanua, who the defense alleges was the “mastermind” of the murder scheme.
11:58 a.m.: Adelson Institute employees testify
The state calls employees of the Adelson Institute, which has since been sold, to testify.
Prosecutor Sarah Dugan is questioning these witnesses. It’s the first time she’s questioned any witnesses so far in this trial.
The first was Clariza Lebredo, who has worked as a dental assistant there for about 40 years. She said employees were paid in checks bi-weekly. She also said Katherine Magbanua was not an employee of the institute or cleaning company.
Next is Erika Johnson. She worked at the front desk of the dental office, and she was there when the FBI visited and asked for Magbanua’s employment records. She said she “loved” working for the Adelsons.
The state played a phone call she made to Charlie Adelson to ask for direction when the investigators visited the office. Investigators were tapping and recording Adelson’s cell phone calls at the time.
On the recording, Johnson informs the periodontist of the investigators’ inquiries. At first, he hesitates to respond. He tells her not to talk to anyone. Then he changes course, saying he “shouldn’t” tell her not to talk to anyone and that she may.
Then, he says he’ll call her back.
“Do me a favor,” he told her in the recording. “I’m gonna call you from a landline on your cell phone.”
Johnson testified that Donna Adelson handled the payroll. She said they were played bi-weekly.
She testified under the defense’s questioning that she called Charlie because his parents and the office owners Harvey and Donna Adelson were out of town.
The last thing Johnson told Dugan was that she didn’t remember the contents of her conversation with Adelson on the landline. She’s previously testified in Markel’s murder, and has always denied remembering that phone call.
The witness was then dismissed.
As Johnson left the courtroom, she made eye contact with Adelson. They smiled warmly at one another.
Then, Everett dismissed the jury for lunch.
Adelson leaned in to huddle with his counsel, putting one hand on Rashbaum’s back, and smiled again as the group spoke.
11:37 a.m.: Magbanua tells the state they all knew it was going to be a murder, and she leaves
The assistant state attorney briefly asked Magbanua about her understanding of the conspiracy.
Under questioning, the convict testified that she, Garcia and Rivera all knew it was going to “result in a death,” as the prosecutor put it.
Then, the state concluded questioning. Cappleman said she may call the South Florida mother back at a later time.
11:16 a.m.: Magbanua’s romantic history
Adelson and Magbanua met in the fall of 2013, she testified. He pursued her, but they agreed to keep it casual.
“Did you have sexual relations with Sigfredo Garcia while you were dating Charlie Adelson?” Rashbaum asked.
“Yes I did,” she said.
“Did Charlie know that?” Rashbaum asked.
“Well I wouldn’t tell him that,” she said.
She said Charlie treated her well, but she said no when the defense asked if he treated her better than Garcia, who is the father of her children.
Magbanua testified that she never warned Adelson to stay away from Garcia, but said Adelson would be afraid of her ex.
Then the defense asked her about Adelson.
She said Adelson talks a lot, and that he would talk on the phone with herself and his mother.
“He told you about this ‘TV was cheaper than a hitman joke’ a lot of times, right?” Rashbaum asked.
She said yes.
“He makes a lot of bad jokes, right?” the defense asked.
She said yes. They were allegedly hiring a hitman but she didn’t ask him to stop saying that joke, the defense asked.
“No because he feels like he’s untouchable,” Magbanua said.
The state said it was because he didn’t know he was hiring a hitman.
“He knew he was hiring a hitman,” the witness responded.
The defense began questioning Magbanua on Charlie’s innocence.
“Isn’t it true that you were the mastermind of Dan Markel’s murder,” Rashbaum asked.
“No sir, that was Charlie,” she said.
“Ma’am let me ask the questions, I know you have an agenda, but let me ask the questions,” Rashbaum said.
The state objected, and the judge instructed the jurors to ignore the “agenda comment.” One juror pursed his lips and nodded his head in response.
When the defense asked Magbanua if she lied to Adelson on wire calls, and she said yes. The defense asked if she lied to Garcia, and she said no, but he lied to her.
The defense objected, and the judge overruled the objection.
“She was responding to the question, you don’t have to like the answer,” Circuit Judge Stephen Everett said.
10:36 a.m.: Defense questions Magbanua on why she didn’t cooperate
The state offered Magbanua immunity after her arrest if she would testify against the others, but the South Florida mother didn’t take the deal. The defense asked her why:
In order to give up Charlie I had to give up Sigfredo, the father of my children, so I couldn’t do that.
Katherina Magbanua
The defense asked again how she could turn down the deal.
“I didn’t cooperate because in order to give up Charlie I had to give up Sigfredo,” she said again.
Rashbaum asked if Adelson paid for her attorneys. At first, she said “there was word” her brother “declined” an offer from Adelson.
Adelson jerked his head back in apparent shock at her statement.
The defense redirected her to answer the question, and she said no, Adelson didn’t pay for her defense.
Rashbaum is reading back some of her statements in her previous trials that Magbanua is now recanting. He reads a statement, such as when she previously said she knew nothing about stapled cash or picking up money from Adelson’s house.
“Yes I told you I lied. I lied in my trials to save myself.”
The defense asked if she is lying now to “save” herself again.
“I’m not saving myself, I’m telling the truth this time,” she said.
“All of a sudden, after eight years, you’ve developed a conscience?” Rashbaum asked.
“No, it was because the father of my children was on death penalty at that time,” she said.
Rashbaum is alleging the only way she can go home now is “in a coffin,” referring to her life sentence, or by cooperating with the state.
“Isn’t it because you want to go home and it’s the only way you could?” he asked.
”I was not promised anything,” she said. “I’m doing this solely on myself, clearly, you don’t even see my attorneys in my room.”
The defense asked Magbanua about interviews she had with investigators after her conviction last spring. The defense pushed Magbanua, accusing her of continuing to lie about her involvement in the plot. Magbanua said she “minimized” her role.
“It was very hard for me to confess what I’ve done.”
Katherine Magbanua
The defense questioned her on some inconsistencies in her meetings with investigators.
“This is something that was suppressed for a long time, sir,” Magbanua said.
The defense asked Magbanua again if the only ways she can get out of prison are if she helps the state or if she dies, and she repeated that the state did not offer her anything.
“What’s the only way you’re getting out of prison if the state doesn’t help you? Rashbaum asked again.
“I’ll die in prison,” she said.
He asks her again if it is true that she didn’t admit for more than an hour in an interview that she knew the plan was supposed to be a murder.
“Yes sir, I told you it was very hard for me to admit my part in all of this, I’m sorry,” she said.
9:15 a.m.: “Who came up with the idea to kill Dan Markel?” Katherine Magbanua: “Charlie.”
Right off the bat, Magbanua said she was not honest in her previous testimonies.
The state asked if she was honest when she testified in her defense previously.
“No ma’am, I was not,” Magbanua said.
“So why tell the truth now?” the prosecutor asked.
“I believe that the truth needed to come out now so that the family could get some closure,” she said.
Then, Magbanua outright accused Charlie of plotting the murder.
“Who came up with the idea to kill Dan Markel?” Cappleman asked.
“Charlie,” Magbanua said.
Magbanua said she didn’t know who they were killing by name. They just knew the target as “Wendi’s husband,” she told the prosecution.
“I never knew Dan Markel’s name,” she said.
Charlie told her Markel was a bad person, Magbanua alleged.
“He painted this picture that this was a terrible man and was making his family go through a lot custody wise with his sister,”
The idea first came up on Halloween 2013, she said.
Magbanua said Charlie asked her “Do you know anybody that can harm someone? And I said yes,” she told the prosecution.
She said Charlie and Garcia didn’t know each other’s names. She said she was no longer with Garcia and dating Adelson instead, and they didn’t want to know each other’s names.
She only referred to them as “my friend” when she spoke to either man because she was previously romantically involved with Garcia and currently involved with Adelson, she told Cappleman.
Garcia wouldn’t have wanted to help Adelson, Magbanua testified, so she didn’t overtly say it was for him. She told him it was to help a woman get her kids, but she said she still believed Garcia knew it was connected Adelson.
She accused Adelson of pushing her to complete the hit.
“He’d been planting this seed in my head.”
Katherine Magbanua
She told Cappleman that Charlie gave her a manilla envelope to give to Garcia and Rivera before the murder. He urged her not to touch or open it, and he said that she needed to
She also said she was with Adelson the night of the murder. When she arrived, Magbanua told Cappleman she was calm.
“I wasn’t in a panic, but Charlie was,” Magbanua said. “When I opened the door he was kind of frantic and he had a gun in his hand and he was kind of all over the place.”
He gave her the money. It was stapled and in an envelope. She said when she opened it later, she told Garcia that it was moldy and wet.
Cappleman asked her why.
“I believe his parents or his mom might have washed the money,” Magbanua said.
Adelson was “adamant” about not keeping cash in his home, Magbanua testified. He already had the money when she arrived at his home that night, and he mentioned that his parents had been at the residence right before Magbanua arrived, so she thought they brought it, she said.
As Magbanua testified, Adelson was fervently writing notes. He then showed them to his attorneys.
Magbanua denied threatening or harming Adelson in any way on the night of the murder. She said she didn’t relay any messages to Adelson from Garcia or threaten Adelson’s family.
Next, they discussed the Dolce Vita meeting, when Magbanua and Adelson got together at a South Florida residence. It was after “the bump,” as the prosecution puts it, or when an undercover FBI agent approached Donna Adelson and pretended to extort her.
The FBI recorded that meeting. You can watch some of it here:
Magbanua testified they were speaking in code during that meeting and in phone calls near the time they got together.
The prosecution projected a chart reviewing the “code words”
In one part of the recording at the restaurant, Charlie Adelson. allegedly said they were dealing with “one of two” scenarios.
Those two scenarios were “probably the FBI or Tato blackmailing,” Magbanua testified, clarifying that Tato is a nickname for Rivera.
“He’s the one that’s coming up with all the scenarios” Magbanua said, and Adelson shook his head.
“Did you ever blackmail Charlie Adelson?” Cappleman asked.
“No ma’am, I did not,” Magbanua replied.
“Did anyone ever make you extort any money or any favors out of Charlie Adelson,” the prosecutor asked.
She said no. Magbanua denied bragging about Adelson as her “rich boyfriend.”
“I didn’t even know he had money like that,” she said.
Adelson and Rashbaum smirked and shook their heads, putting their face in their hands, in reaction to her comment.
The attorney asked her if Garcia or Rivera conspired without her to kill Markel.
“That would be impossible, how would they have any information?” Magbanua responded.
“Well they could have seen it on the internet,” Cappleman said.
“No,” the convict said.
8:44 a.m.: The defense questions Rivera
The jury is seated and so is convicted hitman Luis Rivera.
Defense attorney Daniel Rashbaum is questioning him.
The defense asked him if it was possible if Sigfredo Garcia and Katherine Magbanua lied to him about their intentions in the crime. He asked if it was possible that they killed Markel to extort Charlie Adelson.
“I don’t know,” Rivera said.
Rivera testified that Garcia was in love with Magbanua, and Rivera considered the pair married.
“He would do anything for her, right?” Rashbaum asked.
“Anything,” Rivera responded.
According to Rivera, Magbanua was cheating on Garcia and “would only take him back if he did this job for her.” Under Rashbaum’s questioning, he said she was cheating on Garcia with “the dentist.”
The convict testified that Garcia began drinking heavily, doing drugs and couldn’t hold steady employment after Magbanua’s alleged affair.
The defense said Garcia attempted to run down Adelson with his car, and asked Rivera if he was angry.
“He was a good man,” Rivera said. “Anybody would get angry if your wife was doing another man.”
The defense asks Rivera about the cash he used to pay for the rental car he and Garcia took to Tallahassee.
The defense pushed that many things Garcia told Rivera were untrue, and that after the murder, Garcia and Magbanua were able to buy “nice things.”
When Magbanua dropped off the payment for the hit, Rivera testified it was the first time he’d ever seen stapled money.
Then the prosecution took over.
“Mr. Rivera, the defense characterized a lot of things Garcia told you as lies,” Prosecutor Georgia Cappleman began.
She asked if Rivera thought Garcia was lying to him. He said no, he thought Garcia really believed what he said.
Then she moved onto the “nice things” Magbanua and Garcia bought.
“How long after the murder did Garcia seem to have a lot of money?” the prosecutor asked.
“Weeks or months,” Rivera said.
“But after that, he was broke again?” Cappleman asked.
“Yes,” Garcia responded.
The defense is asserting that the manner of Adelson’s payments are proof of extortion. That he paid Magbanua and Garcia in installments, over a period of months. The defense argues hits are a one or two-time payment, but extortions are more long-term.
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