Dan Markel murder: Katherine Magbanua trial still on for May despite Charlie Adelson arrest
The arrest of the alleged mastermind of the murder of Dan Markel Thursday won’t affect the pending trial of one of the indicted co-conspirators set to face a jury in just weeks.
Katherine Magbanua’s Miami attorneys, Tara Kawass and Chris DeCoste, said during a hearing Monday they are ready for trial and would like to keep the May 16 start date that was set earlier this year. Magbanua is charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder and solicitation of murder.
Assistant State Attorney Georgia Cappleman said the state was also ready for trial.
Magbanua was arrested in 2016 and is suspected of being the conduit between the Markel’s killers, her long-time boyfriend and mother of her children, Sigfredo Garcia, and his friend Luis Rivera, and Markel’s former in-laws.
Garcia was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Rivera took a plea deal in exchange for his cooperation with prosecutors and is serving a 12-year sentence he is serving concurrent of a federal charge.
The two men drove from Miami to Tallahassee in a rented Prius to shoot Markel point-blank in his Betton Hills garage.
Chronicling the case:
Dan Markel murder: Prosecutors discuss 'big difference' new evidence made in Adelson arrest
Dan Markel murder: Charlie Adelson arrested on murder charges in Broward County
The case surrounding Markel’s 2014 slaying took a major turn last week when the Florida State law professor’s former brother in-law, Charlie Adelson, was arrested at his home in Broward County.
The 45-year-old is charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder and solicitation of murder.
Prosecutors long suspected Adelson as the financier of what investigators say was a murder-for-hire in the fallout of Markel’s divorce. He, however, hadn’t been charged until he was indicted by a Leon County grand jury last week. He has not yet been brought to Tallahassee.
Adelson was charged after State Attorney Jack Campbell said newly enhanced audio from a secret recording done at a South Florida restaurant was presented to a grand jury.
The so-called Dulce Vida recording, taken in 2016 by FBI agents at the Miami restaurant of the same name, captures a conversation between Magbanua and Adelson in which they allegedly discuss undercover agents approaching his mom about Markel’s shooting. Prosecutors say the conversations detail the chain of information flow about the murder conspiracy.
Adelson, a Fort Lauderdale dentist, could be heard making apparent references to the 2014 murder and law enforcement’s efforts to get uncharged suspects talking, according to transcripts of the recording provided by the State Attorney's Office.
The conversation happened after an undercover FBI agent handed Adelson’s mother a newspaper article about the murder with “$5,000” written on it. Adelson, who was sure the agent was either a cop or a blackmailer, decided to talk about it with Magbanua, his office assistant and former girlfriend.
Contact Karl Etters at ketters@tallahassee.com or @KarlEtters on Twitter.
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This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Dan Markel murder: Katherine Magbanua trial still set to start on May 16
