Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Cops Search Donna Adelson's Computers For Murder Evidence As She Gets New Lawyers

Episode Date: January 9, 2024

Detectives are searching Donna Adelson's computers going back more than a decade for evidence linking her to the plot to murder her former son-in-law, FSU law professor Dan Markel. Search warrants filed with the court revealed the new information as Adelson hired two new attorneys - one who represented her son, Charlie, in his trial. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy talks with Tallahassee attorney Tim Jansen about the search warrants and Adelson's new lawyers in this episode of Crime Fix - a daily show that delves into the biggest stories in the world of crime.HOST:Angenette Levy: twitter.com/Angenette5CRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoAudio Editing - Brad MaybeGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@LawandCrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this law and crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. The wires show his innocence. And they certainly don't show proof beyond a reasonable doubt of his guilt. You saw Dan Rashbaum represent Charlie Adelson in his trial. Now he's switching clients and representing Donna Adelson as her turn comes to stand trial for the murder of Dan Markell. This as new search warrants for other electronic devices come to light.

I'm Anjanette Levy. It's Tuesday and this is Crime Fix, law and crime's look at the biggest stories in the world of crime. Donna Adelson was supposed to be in court today for a status hearing, but heavy rains in the South led the court to cancel that hearing. But there's still a lot of news in Donna Adelson's case. First, she has new lawyers. Dan Rauchbaum will represent her along with Tallahassee lawyer Alex Morris. The Adelsons made it clear on jail calls following Charlie's conviction that a local lawyer might be important. But it's like what Kaplan did for her closing with all the lines and the made for TV drama of like, of all

of what she put up, like what, what, like there will never be another outcome with what she did up there with the pictures being left up there for five, 10 minutes at a time. Like she, she dumped it down and put in a bunch of lines and it was like, she dummied it down. She dummied it down for a bunch of lies. And it was like a TV. She dummied it down for a bunch of dummies and it flew. Now this is an interesting turn of events. Rashbaum appears to be close to the Adelsons. Donna Adelson talked about him many times on jail calls with Charlie, including when she discussed leaving the country.

We're going to make a decision at some point. So after speaking to Dan this morning and knowing what they're thinking up there, I don't know if we'll make it out in time. I really don't. But Dan said, you might, or you might do all of this to the airport

and they'll stop us. And that could happen. It could happen. I don't know, but it's worth a try. Donna Adelson's current attorney had said during her last court appearance that she wanted a speedy trial. And that may not happen now with a new lawyer coming on board. But Dan Rashbaum definitely knows the case front to back.

Also, there are new search warrants that have been filed with the court. Investigators seized Apple iPhones and Apple iPad and two MacBook Pros from Harvey and Donna Adelson. Investigators got a warrant to search both MacBook Pros for information related to Markell's murder involving Donna Adelson going back to 2012, two years before the murder. Prosecutors have painted Donna Adelson as one of the masterminds in the conspiracy to murder Dan Markell, so her daughter Wendy Adelson could move their children to Miami from Tallahassee. Donna Adelson has pleaded not guilty to the charges and remains in the Leon County Jail. Regards are keeping a close eye on her, fearing she might attempt suicide after she referenced that on jail calls.

Adelson, of course, scoffed at that suggestion in court last month. Now, before she was arrested in Miami, she also had a phone call with her son, who's obviously in jail here. 25-minute phone call. I personally listened to it. She very clearly spoke about a plan to kill herself using sleeping pills. One moment, Ms. Adelson, please keep your comments to yourself. Let your lawyer argue on your behalf. Joining me to discuss these recent developments in Donna Adelson's case is somebody who's very familiar with the case. He's been following it for years. He's Tim Jansen. He's an attorney in Tallahassee. So welcome back to Crime Fix. Tim, thanks for coming back. Thank you for having me.

What is your feeling on this, Tim, that Dan Rauchbaum, who represented Charlie at trial, and now Alex Morris, that these two are going to be representing Donna Adelson at trial? Dan obviously knows the case, you know, front to back. He knows all of the nitty gritty details. I think it signals that Donna wants a quick trial because if they were going to have a whole new team, it would have taken about eight months to a year to prepare. Alex, he goes by Alex. He would not have been ready to go. But I think with Daniel being there, he's going to take half the load. He's going to get Alex prepared.

And Alex will be doing like half the work. So they could probably get it ready to go to trial probably in April, which I think that's when they want to try it. I spoke to Alex Morris just briefly on the phone last night. And obviously there's a lot for him to get up to speed on. And Donna Adelson said at her arraignment that she wants a speedy trial. She does not want to be sitting in that jail any longer than she has to be. That signals to me that she feels like she could get off. I don't know.

She kind of seemed kind of confident at the arraignment. At least that's how I took it. What are your thoughts on her pushing for a speedy trial? Well, her problem is twofold. One, she wants a speedy trial not because she's going to win, but because of the conditions and her health. Secondly, on the flight, she took off to leave, right? And there's a consciousness of guilt because you take off. Her explanation is probably going to be,

I saw my son not get a fair trial, and that's why I left because you can't get a fair trial. So if she feels that way to explain the flight, it's going to be hard to at the same time say, I'm confident that a separate jury in the same location is going to treat me more fairly. Back to the Alex Morris part of this. There was a quote from Charlie on the jail calls that kind of sticks in my mind. He talked about Georgia Kaplan putting on a Tallahassee show for the jury. Obviously, they wanted local counsel to somebody that they felt like could speak to this jury

because you couldn't have two different places, I think, than Tallahassee and Miami, Florida. So what are your thoughts on that and why they wanted local counsel to be a part of this team? Well, I think they both realized hiring a jury consultant to come in and pick the jury and then having Dan from Miami was a failure, a complete, absolute failure. No lawyer would give up the opportunity to get to know that jury during jury selection. And that's what Dan did. He didn't have any questions for the jury. He let the jury consultant do it. So he never built that rapport. And also the jury consultant doesn't really know Tallahassee, the communities, the neighborhood. Alex will know that. Alex will know where people live and get an idea of what working, if they're working class, if they're in

the affluent, if they're in the lower neighborhoods, he will know that. And then they're going to target witness or jurors that they think is favorable to them. But how do you do that with Donna Adelson, a very wealthy woman from Miami? What is your target jury? That's the question. Yeah, it makes you wonder, who is your target jury? And they've already – this has been in the news up there a lot. I mean, I don't know how – I don't know what the news consumption is like in

Tallahassee. I don't know if people were glued to this up there. Obviously, if you follow crime, people were very interested in it. But, you know, when you get to talking about just jurors in a city or a county, these are people just normal everyday people. They have their own lives and everything. So, you know, it's just kind of like, I don't know. I mean, they're not like hanging on every development of this case. Typical jurors. Well, I can tell you that's probably true. But in this case, it was so big to Tallahassee that the Democrat, I did a daily analysis of the trial and they did live feed the whole trial.

So anybody could go on their computer and watch it. And I'll tell you, when I meet people, I'm amazed how many people are glued on this trial. It is local. It's got the characteristics of the mother and the son and it's got a lot of ingredients that attract people. So I think they'll get a jury, but I don't know if they know what kind of jury they want because you're selling a story, right? The double extortion. Donna's going to have to pick up on that same theme, you would think, right? And if that's true, that means that on the night of the murder, she was told who killed her grandson's father. Yet three days later, after the funeral, she takes the kids and her daughter

moves them closer to the murderers. It just doesn't ring true. It's a bad story to sell. So you think they might actually go with the double extortion again because they don't necessarily have to? I think they have to have a modified version of it because how else are they going to explain the coded language between Donna and her son? They're talking in codes. And then after the bump, who is this involved? Oh, you and me, the two of us. And then there's one where she says, they say, well, Donna, Wendy doesn't realize how lucky she is, which kind of infers that Wendy had nothing to do with it. Didn't know what they did.

So she's going to have to have some answers for the coded language after the bumps and paying Magbano for doing no work. Tim, one thing that's really interesting is that Donna Adelson is on jail calls talking about how she's having all of these conversations with Dan Rashbaum. And she's saying when she's on a hot mic, if you will, she doesn't realize she's still being recorded about talking to Dan and whether or not they could get out in time and that she's talking about going to Vietnam. So what kind of problem does that create if she's actually talking to him about possibly fleeing? Well, it's not sure if she was talking to Harvey because she didn't know the recording was still going on. If she was talking to Harvey, that's not attorney-client privilege, the third party. If she's talking about fleeing the jurisdiction to avoid prosecution,

is that privilege material? Does that fit the exception of crime? It could be a problem. The state might want to call Dan to be a witness because that's going to be a really key piece of evidence in this case is her flight to avoid prosecution and extradition. And there's going to be a jury instruction. You can infer guilt by her ability and her willingness to get on that plane and leave the jurisdiction. So that's a big piece for the government's case. And it may be problematic for Dan to stay on that plane and leave the jurisdiction. So that's a big piece for the government's case. And it may be problematic for Dan to stay on this case. And I think that it was clear she's talking to Harvey there, but she is talking about talking

to Dan about it. So that seems to me to be a really interesting point if she was indeed talking to Dan Rashbaum about fleeing. I agree. And I think that the state could probably, she was not, the question is, was Dan her lawyer at the time while she was talking to Dan? And even if she was, she's waived that privilege by giving it to a third party,

which would be Harvey. Now they can call Harvey to the stand and then they could call Harvey to the stand. And then they could call Dan to the stand to basically confirm that her intention was to flee. And that's a big piece of evidence I think George and Sarah are going to introduce. One thing I wanted to ask you about was these new search warrants. Obviously, electronic devices these days, I feel like it's the 21st century DNA. These electronic devices store every little thing you do. And often, the evidence can be very damning. Now they're looking back at these MacBook Pros going back to 2012. Your thoughts on that? I think that's interesting because we're seeing a lot of new

crimes. And the way you analyze the DNA is that's how the Innocence Project got all these people off death row because of DNA. Now you look at the Murdoch trial in South Carolina. What convicted him? The Snapchat when he said he wasn't at the dog cages and it was picked up by his son sending a Snapchat. So yeah, these electronics can kill you. And it stores forever. FBI has the most talented people. If there is something there,

they're going to be able to find it. And it could shed light in maybe Wendy's involvement or conversations that we haven't heard before. There was a reason they asked for those items is they're still searching or searching for more. Yeah, most certainly. Well, it'll be interesting to see how it all plays out. You know, we welcome Dan Rauchbaum and Alex Morris to come on the show anytime and we'll see what happens. this hearing that was canceled for today is rescheduled because of all of the rain down

there. And we're glad you're safe, Tim. We know you were down in your basement huddling from a tornado warning, which is really scary. But thanks again for making time for us. We appreciate it. And that's it for Crime Fix on this Tuesday, January 9th, 2024. I'm Anjanette Levy. Thanks so much for joining us. We'll see you back here tomorrow night. Until then, have a great night. You can download Crime Fix on Apple, Spotify, Google, and wherever else you get your favorite podcasts and new episodes post each weeknight at 6 Eastern time on Law and Crime's YouTube channel. Daniel Camacho does our video editing. Our head of social media is Bobby Zoki. Our senior director of social media is Vanessa Bynes. Savannah Williamson is one of our producers.

Diane Kay and Alyssa Fisher book our guests. And Brad Mabey is our audio editor.