Donna Adelson arrested in Dan Markel murder after booking one-way plane tickets to Vietnam

The nearly decade-long Dan Markel murder probe took an unexpected and dramatic turn Monday night when Donna Adelson — whose family has been under a cloud of suspicion for years — was arrested at the Miami International Airport with one-way plane tickets to Vietnam.

The arrest of Adelson, Markel’s former mother-in-law, came just one week after her son, Fort Lauderdale dentist Charlie Adelson, was found guilty in the fatal 2014 shooting of the law professor.

Donna Adelson, 73, of Miami, was taken into custody a little after 10 p.m. on a state warrant charging her with first-degree murder, conspiracy and solicitation, the same charges on which her son was convicted.

State Attorney Jack Campbell said Donna Adelson and her husband, Harvey Adelson, were intercepted at the airport by the FBI and other law enforcement. They had tickets to Vietnam, which has no extradition treaty with the United States, with a scheduled two-day stop in Dubai.

Campbell told the Tallahassee Democrat that while police and prosecutors had enough evidence to arrest Donna Adelson, her attempted flight overseas sped up the state’s timetable and pushed law enforcement “to make a decision quickly.”

“That’s what forced our hand,” Campbell said. "We started talking to some of our law enforcement partners about the complexities of trying to bring someone back from either Dubai or Vietnam. And that might be a very complicated and lengthy process. So that’s why we had to make a decision quickly."

Adelson was booked into the Miami-Dade Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center, where she is being held without bond. She is expected to be transported to the Leon County Detention Facility, where her son is incarcerated while he awaits sentencing, within the next couple of weeks.

She and her husband attempted to leave the country less than 48 hours before a grand jury was scheduled to meet at the Leon County Courthouse. Campbell, citing the secrecy of the grand jury system, said he didn’t know whether the panel would take up Adelson’s case. All first-degree murder charges must run through a grand jury.

Campbell said the state did not have the evidence to arrest Harvey Adelson, a retired dentist and former owner of the Adelson Institute in Tamarac, where Donna Adelson served as office manager and Charlie Adelson, a periodontist, also worked. He said Donna Adelson's attempted flight will be used against her should the case proceed to trial.

It wasn't the first time airports have come up in the case. In 2016, Charlie Adelson told an accomplice during a secretly recorded conversation at the Dolce Vita restaurant in Miami that they would have already gone to the airport if police had any solid evidence against them.

During her first court appearance Tuesday morning via Zoom, Donna Adelson was silent as Judge Mindy Glazer read the charges against her aloud. There was a brief discussion about bond, though prosecutors signaled it wouldn't be allowed given the gravity of the charges.

Marissel Descalzo, a Miami attorney representing Donna and Harvey Adelson, asked to waive extradition. Glazer said Leon County had until Nov. 29 to bring her to Tallahassee.

"They have 15 days to pick you up," the judge said. "Good luck to you. That's it for that."

Meanwhile, court records released Tuesday include new details in the investigation, including phone calls between Donna Adelson and her son after his conviction last week.

The monitored phone calls included multiple conversations "in which Donna Sue Adelson is telling Charles Adelson that she is getting things in order, creating trusts, and making sure her grandchildren are taken care of," the affidavit says. "Donna discusses plans for a suicide, but also discusses plans to flee to a non-extradition country. Donna Sue Adelson has considerable financial resources to do this."

Dan Markel murder has drawn a national spotlight

Prosecutors have long considered Donna and Harvey Adelson and their daughter Wendi Adelson, Markel’s ex-wife and the mother of their two sons, as conspirators in the murder-for-hire plot. Wendi Adelson testified during her brother’s trial that her family was not involved.

The arrest warrants say Donna Adelson conspired with her son and others to commit the murder. They were signed by Leon Circuit Judge Stephen Everett, who presided over Charlie Adelson's trial.

The arrest marked another bombshell development in the Markel case, coming in rapid-fire succession after a 12-person jury returned guilty verdicts Nov. 6 against Charlie Adelson, the victim’s former brother-in-law. Jurors deliberated only three hours before announcing their decision.

Pat Sanford, the FBI’s lead agent on the Markel case, was at the airport at the time of the arrest, along with other law enforcement, Campbell said.

Charlie Adelson's trial alone attracted a new round of national attention, with coverage in the New York Times and a two-hour report Friday by ABC's "20/20." It also sparked a cottage industry of commentators on YouTube and elsewhere on social media.

Prosecutors had only hinted that more charges were possible after Charlie Adelson's trial. "Stay tuned," Assistant State Attorney Georgia Cappleman said outside Courtroom 3G.

Who is Donna Adelson and what is her connection to the case?

Donna Adelson, who has three children with her husband, Harvey, is the matriarch of a family that built a successful dental practice in South Florida before allegedly planning and financing Markel’s murder.

She is the second member of her family and the fifth person to be charged in connection to the murder, which occurred amid a bitter post-divorce fight between Markel and Wendi Adelson, who is Charlie Adelson’s younger sister.

Markel, then a 41-year-old father of two young sons, was shot twice in the head the morning of July 18, 2014, after parking his car in the garage of his Trescott Drive home. He died the next day at a local hospital.

The ensuing investigation, conducted by the Tallahassee Police Department with assistance from the FBI, led to the arrests of the two hit men, Luis Rivera, a Latin Kings gang member, and Sigfredo Garcia, and Katie Magbanua, the killers’ link to Charlie Adelson.

Donna Adelson featured heavily in her son’s eight-day trial, through wire taps with her son that were played in court and emails and texts with her family that prosecutors read aloud. Though she and her husband were both initially listed as witnesses, the state and defense both agreed to drop them before the trial.

Prosecutors argued that the motive for the killing was the Adelson family’s desperate desire for Wendi Adelson to move back to Miami, which a judge had blocked at Markel’s request.

In one email from 2013 after the judge’s decision, Donna Adelson told her daughter not to let Markel “think he’s won anything.”

“Jibbers hasn’t beaten the Adelson family yet,” Donna Adelson wrote, using a family put-down to refer to Markel. “It’s time to take control of your life and not let Jibbers think he’s won anything by having you remain in Tallahassee, eight hours away from the only family you have. 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.”

In 2016, the FBI sent an undercover agent posing as a blackmailer to hit Donna Adelson up for $5,000 outside her Miami condo. In a phone call right after to her son, she spoke in veiled language about what had happened but said it involved “probably the two of us. So you probably have a general idea what I’m talking about.”

Campbell: Donna Adelson's arrest not designed to get son's cooperation

Rivera took a plea deal in 2016, agreeing to 19 years in prison in exchange for his cooperation against Garcia and Magbanua, the mother of Garcia’s children and Charlie Adelson’s ex-girlfriend. Both Garcia and Magbanua got life sentences for first-degree murder.

Garcia was convicted at his joint trial with Magbanua in 2019. She was convicted in her second trial last year and later opted to cooperate, testifying against Charlie Adelson during his trial.

Analysis: Even after almost a decade, Dan Markel murder saga may not be over

Prosecutors have not yet announced whether they will seek a reduction in Magbanua’s sentence in exchange for her help. Also unclear is whether Charlie Adelson, who faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison, might cooperate to help himself or his mom.

Campbell acknowledged the state has more evidence in the case than has been seen in any of the previous three trials. He declined to elaborate, however.

“I hope that everyone cooperates in this case,” Campbell said. “But the arrest of his mother was not done in any way to facilitate him cooperating. Do I hope that everyone will tell me the truth about the murder of Dan Markel? Yes I do. But I don’t do power plays to get people to cooperate.”

Contact Jeff Burlew at jburlew@tallahassee.com or 850-599-2180.

Chronicling every day of the Charlie Adelson trial:

The Tallahassee Democrat, which has covered the case closely since Markel's murder, had three journalists in the courtroom. Here is a collection of their coverage.

• Pre-trial: What we learned from jury selection

• Walkthrough of witnesses: Those making the case for, against Charlie Adelson

• Case primer: Everything to know about the murder-for-hire case

• Day 1 opening statements: Defense says ex-girlfriend was murder 'mastermind'

• Day 1 testimony: Wendi Adelson says she was surprised to learn Charlie knew Dan Markel's murderer all along

• Day 2: Charlie Adelson murder trial sees twists, turns as his sister and a hit man testify

• Day 3: Magbanua flips: Web of lies and phone records dominate Day 3 of Charlie Adelson trial

• Day 4: Enter the FBI: Surveillance, wiretaps and phone records dominate Day 4 of Adelson trial

• Day 5: Charlie Adelson announces he will take the stand amid bombshell wire taps

• Day 6: 'My life depends on it': Charlie Adelson testifies prosecutors 'wrong' about Markel murder

• Day 7: 'Extortion layaway' and the grilling of Charlie Adelson in Dan Markel murder-for-hire

• Day 8: Piecing together the Charlie Adelson 'puzzle': Case heads to jury after closing arguments

• Verdict: For Markels, Charlie Adelson guilty verdict a 'relief' after 'long and terrible ordeal'

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Donna Adelson arrested days after son's conviction in Dan Markel murder