Donna Adelson mug shot revealed after swift arrest in Miami
Donna Adelson (Miami-Dade County Corrections and Rehabilitation), Dan Markel (Law&Crime Network file photo), Charlie Adelson pictured after hearing his guilty verdicts on Nov. 6, 2023 (Law&Crime Network)
The 73-year-old matriarch of the Adelson family, who prosecutors repeatedly said “hated” her former son-in-law Dan Markel, was arrested in Miami on Monday night, just one week after her dentist son Charlie Adelson was found guilty of the July 18, 2014, murder-for-hire plot that took the life of the Florida State University law professor amid a contentious child custody battle.
Miami-Dade County Corrections and Rehabilitation records reviewed by Law&Crime show that Donna Sue Adelson was booked into jail at 10:08 p.m. last night on an out-of-county felony warrant. The records do not specify which county or charges, but the 5’6″ and 112-pound arrestee’s son was convicted seven days ago in Leon County of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and solicitation to commit murder.
Those convictions made Charlie Adelson, 47, the fourth person convicted of Dan Markel’s murder, along with Latin Kings leader Luis Rivera, triggerman Sigfredo “Tuto” Garcia, and Katherine Magbanua, Charlie’s ex-girlfriend.
At Charlie Adelson’s trial, prosecutors successfully persuaded jurors that the defendant’s elaborate story about being an extortion victim didn’t make sense. What made more sense, prosecutors said, was that Donna Adelson was hell-bent on having her two grandsons move from Tallahassee to Miami but the fallout from her daughter Wendi Adelson’s divorce from Markel threatened that goal.
Donna’s emails with Wendi showed she “hated” Markel and that she was “desperate to find a way” to overcome the murdered law professor’s “adamant” opposition to relocating his sons to South Florida.
After the divorce was finalized, heated litigation over child custody continued in the courts, and Dan Markel had asked a judge to enter an order preventing Donna Adelson from having unsupervised contact with her grandkids. Prosecutors noted that the motion was still pending at the time of the murder and that Markel’s death made the Adelson family’s “problem” go away.
Around 48 hours after Markel was shot in his garage, where Rivera and Garcia had followed him, the Adelsons got their wish. Both Wendi and the two boys moved to a residence that was within walking distance of the Adelson family home, prosecutors said.
Within a year, Wendi Adelson legally changed her sons’ last name from Markel to Adelson.
Charlie Adelson testified at trial that custody battle was “litigious,” but he claimed he “wasn’t really involved with the divorce proceedings on the day to day stuff.” His mother and Wendi were, however.
“I would definitely hear stories, most of which would come from my mom when I’d be driving to work in the morning or driving home,” Adelson testified, estimating that 20-percent of what he heard came from Wendi and 80-percent of what he learned came from his mother’s venting.
Wendi was “extremely stressed, very stressed out” and Donna was “upset because my sister was stressed,” Adelson explained.
“It was almost like a telephone game, like my sister would vent to my mom and my mom would be venting to me,” he said.
Speaking of telephone games, wiretaps of conversations Charlie had with his mother also played a role at trial.
Investigators carrying out “The Bump,” a sting operation, noticed that there was a pattern of phone calls leading up to and around the time of the murder, calls “were always” made in this order: Donna Adelson to Charlie Adelson to Katherine Magbanua to Sigfredo Garcia, only for those calls to be returned in reverse order.
A wiretap of one conversation Donna Adelson had with Charlie Adelson regarded “important paperwork” that was delivered to her by a special agent in 2016. Donna’s call led the Charlie to call Katherine Magbanua, and the former couple had a tense phone call filled with expletives.
An undercover agent recorded video and audio of the moment he handed papers to Donna Adelson outside of her condominium. The agent told her that he was the brother of an incarcerated man (Luis Rivera) who helped the Adelson family with their “problem up North.” He wanted Donna to help out his “brother” like the family had been taking care of Tuto Garcia and Katherine Magbanua.
One lengthy email that Donna Adelson sent her daughter Wendi in July 2013 has long been an arrow in prosecutors’ quiver.
In it, she told her daughter “It’s time to take control of your life and not let Jibbers think he’s just ‘won’ anything by having you remain in Tallahassee, eight hours away from the only family you have, and lose out on what will be a job that will afford you and your children advantages that they will never otherwise be able to enjoy.”
“Let’s show this [expletive] what will make him absolutely miserable,” the email continued. “You know his weak points; money, religion, control.”
“You have 5 weeks before your court date,” she wrote, underlining that text. “I know you have a hob that keeps you very busy. However, the rest of your life, and consequently, dad’s mine and yes, even Charlie’s, will by affected by how well you can perform/act before July 31st.”
If you thought there was ambiguity about what was meant by “perform/act” that was cleared up in the next sentences.
“You can be a good actress when you want to. I’ve seen you in action. You need to put on the performance of your life! Jibbers hasn’t beaten the Adelson family yet,” Donna Adelson wrote.
At Charlie Adelson’s trial, prosecutors focused on a surreptitiously recorded remarks the defendant made to Katherine Magbanua at the restaurant Dolce Vita.
“If they had any evidence, we would have already gone to the airport,” he said.
In a wild twist, Donna Adelson was reportedly arrested at Miami International Airport after she and her husband allegedly purchased one-way tickets to Vietnam, on a flight that would have a layover in Dubai.
Authorities reportedly had the evidence to charge Donna Adelson but they moved in for an arrest with the knowledge that extraditing her from Dubai (in the United Arab Emirates) or Vietnam would be “complicated and lengthy,” as neither have bilateral extradition treaties with the United States.
