Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Murdered Law Professor Dan Markel’s Friend Speaks on Ex-Wife Wendi Adelson, Family's Murder Charges

Episode Date: December 28, 2023

Jason Solomon had a front-row seat to the marital troubles between Dan Markel and Wendi Adelson before Markel was shot to death in July 2014. Solomon and Markel had become friends and were both married to ambitious women. Law&Crime’s Angenette Levy talks with Solomon about his friend, the “Justice for Dan Markel” Facebook page he founded, and what could lie ahead as Wendi’s mother heads to trial in the case.HOST:Angenette Levy: twitter.com/Angenette5CRIME FIX PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoPodcasting - Brad MaybeScript Writing & Producing - Savannah WilliamsonGuest 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. We are morally obligated to obey not only laws that seem quite obviously correct, mala and say laws that are obviously liberalism compatible laws that would ban, say, rape or murder or robbery, but also what I call dumb but not illiberal laws. That was Dan Markell speaking at a conference on the law in 2012, more than two years before his murder. Markell's friends say he was a brilliant legal mind, but more importantly, his favorite job was being a dad. I'm Anjanette Levy, and this is a special edition of Crime Fix, where we're looking at the murder of Dan Markell and talking with one of his friends about who he was as a person and, most importantly, as a father.

So much of the focus in this case has been on wiretaps, stacks of stapled $100 bills, and, of course, the bump, which happens during trials. And sadly, the murder victim gets lost in all of it. So we're going to tell you more about Dan Markell today, but first we want to recap the case quickly, just in case you aren't familiar with it. Dan Markell was shot to death as he sat in the driveway of his home in Tallahassee back on July 18th of 2014. He was a law professor at Florida State University, and he had just returned home from working out after dropping off his two young sons at daycare. He died the next day. It would take some time, but eventually two men were arrested and charged with shooting and killing Markel. They were Latin Kings gang leader Luis

Rivera and Sigfredo Garcia. Rivera would later admit the murder was a hired hit. The mother of Garcia's children, Katie Magbanua, had paid them to carry out the killing for her ex-boyfriend, Charlie Adelson, a dentist from Miami. Charlie Adelson's sister, Wendy Adelson, had been married to Markel, and they were embroiled in a court battle over her desire to move the children to Miami. Markel had also accused Wendy Adelson of hiding assets during their divorce. Charlie Adelson is now serving a life sentence for his role in the crime. Now Charlie and Wendy's mother, Donna Adelson, is accused in the conspiracy. She has pleaded not guilty. Wendy and her father, Harvey Adelson, are considered unindicted

co-conspirators. And I recently reached out to the state attorney's office in Tallahassee and asked whether we could expect more arrests in the case. And I was told, no comments. Although some who followed the case believe it could happen. Joining me to talk about Dan Markell is someone who was friends with him. He's also the co-founder of the Justice for Dan Markell Facebook page. He is Jason Solomon. Jason, thank you for coming on. We appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Yeah. Tell me, how did you meet Dan Markell? Yeah, so I met Dan when we were both law professors starting at the same time.

He at Florida State, me at the University of Georgia. We wrote on some similar topics. He wrote on the criminal justice system. I wrote on the civil justice system. And so we would see each other at conferences and read each other's work. Dan was a great connector of people. And so he was very active in connecting law professors like me, certainly in the Southeast and around the country, to try to learn from one another as we did our work. Jason Solomon and Dan Markell were both professors, and he said they were both married to women who were equally as ambitious as they were, which can be challenging in a marriage.

So they had a lot in common and would discuss those challenges. So you had kind of a front row seat, it sounds like, to the issues he was having with Wendy. Yeah, I did. And I think, you know, he was both very committed to his career and also very committed to his family, both his kids and his marriage. And certainly, you know, I know that there was a time when certainly he and Wendy were trying to work on the issues in their marriage. I know they were attending counseling and I think Dan thought that that was going okay and that they were making progress. But as happens, there came a point where Wendy thought otherwise and decided that she did not want to continue to invest in the marriage. And then certainly they tried to co-parent and tried to work things through in the divorce, but

things went downhill. Was he surprised when she filed for divorce? He was surprised. He was very surprised. It's not that he didn't know that she had unhappiness in the marriage. As I said, they were in counseling. But he thought they were making progress. And he was committed to continuing to make progress. Even after she left, he tried to get her back and get her to continue to work on the marriage. I know he wrote her a very long letter that I know he ran by me and several other friends back then

to try to say that, you know, he was committed to working on the marriage and hoped she would be as well. We've seen Wendy Adelson on the witness stand, most recently at Charlie Adelson's trial. So what did Jason Solomon think of her? I liked her. I didn't know her well, but I liked her. I mean, I think, you know, one thing that gets lost in some of the coverage around this and some of the coverage, of course, what became a terrible divorce and then worse is they were a quite happy couple in the first four or five years. So they were very affectionate with one another.

They were very committed to one another. They had kids, but would take little trips and get the grandparents to sit and to take care of the kids and go on little trips together. So they were really, you know, a wonderful couple and, you know, she was smart and charming. And so, you know, I thought well of her. How was Dan with his children? This is something that a couple of other people have mentioned to me that he was just a really loving, devoted father. Did you have a chance to witness that? Yeah, I did. He was, he was a really, really devoted father. He loved, um, uh, you know, going to the kids' preschool or daycare and, um, joining for circle time, uh, what they had, I guess, I don't know what they did, read stories and all that, but he was always talking about wanting to do that. Even after he and Wendy separated,

it was important to him both that he'd be able to join this circle time at the day school, even on days when he wasn't with the kids and when they were with Wendy. It was also important to him. And frankly, one of the big sticking points during the separation or during the divorce litigation was that one thing that he pushed for and that Wendy agreed to was that he would FaceTime with the kids every night, even if he didn't have them. And so, you know, they were young kids. And so that was something that didn't always happen as agreed to, whether it was because they were young kids and it's hard to wrangle young kids to get on a call at a certain time, or whether it was because, you know, Wendy didn't sufficiently prioritize it. I don't know, but that was something that was very upsetting to him. It was very upsetting to him. It was very upsetting to him, both because he really didn't want to miss a minute with those kids. And

that's why both the divorce itself and then the failure to have these daily calls was very upsetting to him. And so that's one of the factors that led him to, I think, being more aggressive in the divorce litigation because he felt like he had been taken advantage of and was being taken advantage of. Jason Solomon also recalled one thing that was pretty remarkable that Dan Markell was willing to do to keep Wendy Adelson happy and to ensure he was with his children as much as possible. I think that, you know, her mom was a big driver over filing that motion and trying to, you know, I think they set it up so that a lawyer in Miami offered Wendy a job. And so I think, you know, her mom was very committed to getting Wendy and the kids back to South Florida. And frankly, Dan actually entertained the idea of agreeing to that move when Wendy first approached him before Wendy even filed that motion. to keep his job at Florida State, move to Miami and commute back every week during the semesters, which would have been, you know, quite the commute. But, you know, he was committed to

having equal custody of the children. And, you know, frankly, I was one of, I think, several friends who helped talk him out of agreeing to that, that that was unfair of Wendy to ask him to move to South Florida after she was the one who asked for the divorce. But the point is that, you know, her mom, I think, was very influential over what Wendy was doing. Has there been anything that's really surprised you? As we've learned more through Charlie's trial, now we've had the release of the phone calls between Donna and Charlie and now her arrest. Has there been anything that's surprised you? Or are you just kind of like, you know what, nothing surprises me about this anymore? Well, I think i'd say a few things i think um dan used to say about wendy and her relationship to her mother um and i don't know i frankly don't

remember whether this is something that he said to me before they separated or after but he occasionally made a side comment like yet you, when he was never really able to cut the umbilical cord, you know, referring to that very close enmeshed relationship with her mother and how much her mother was involved, frankly, in in their in their marriage and Dan and Wendy's marriage. And so that was always an issue. And of course, now with the release of the phone calls with Donna, the mom, and Charlie, the brother, you can see how enmeshed they all were with one another and with Donna, the mom, and what tragic consequences that has had. I think the other thing I'd say that relates to that is that, you know, I think Wendy and the position she is in now and has been all along, she's in a tough spot. I think she's at a point where now it is known to the world that her brother and her mother killed the father of her children and her ex-husband, Dan Markell. Everybody knows that. So she's going about her business, talking to her friends, talking to whoever she's interacting with. Everyone knows that. And yet she has remained silent

about what she knows about what they did. And now her sons know that and her sons are old enough. I believe they're 14 and 13 or 14 and 15 that they know and they know about Charlie's conviction and they must know that their grandmother's been arrested and all that. And I think Wendy's at a point where she really needs to, if she can, distance herself from her family and make clear that she thinks that what they did was terrible. And then if she's not doing that, which she's not at the moment, then that can only lead to stronger inferences that she must have been involved. And I think right now, a dilemma she must have is she going to be able to save her relationship with her children for the long term because as they get older and as they find out that it was Wendy's family and

perhaps Wendy that killed their father they're just going to cut them you know they're they're they're not going to be able to forgive her. And so I think she has a real choice to make. And I'm curious as to how she is dealing with that. At this point, at least publicly, Wendy Adelson is backing her family. She says they were not involved in Dan Markell's murder. Do you want the culpable parties held accountable for murdering the father of your children? Absolutely. I'm grateful they're already in jail. But not if it's your family. It's not my family. I mean, somebody hired them, right? Not necessarily. Somebody paid them. I learned something this morning. Yeah, me too. You didn't want them held accountable if it was your family members. Didn't you tell law

enforcement that? That's not what I told law enforcement. What did you tell law enforcement? I told them that the person who did this should be held responsible and that I had nothing to do with it. But on jail calls, it's clear that Donna Adelson is very frustrated with her daughter, as is Charlie, for being distant. She says this morning, I thought she'd be racing over here last night dear mom I know you are upset by the verdict but the anger directed at me is not justified

I don't know how much anger we don't I'm not responsible in any way for Charlie's situation I am not guilty because I did not do anything wrong and I was not involved in any way with Danny's death. When I was interviewed by the police and testified in court, I told the truth as I was required to do. I cannot control how the prosecutor used my statement for Charlie's trial.

Again, I didn't say that. Jason Solomon believes it's possible that other arrests could be on the horizon in Dan Markell's murder. I also asked him about the possibility of Charlie Adelson doing what his ex-girlfriend Katie Magbanwa did, maintaining his innocence during trial and then getting to prison and deciding to testify against others for the state. I don't know what, I don't know that he'll get some kind of great break from the prosecution from that, but he may get something like what Katie McDonough might get, which is the opportunity to see daylight again. At some point, the opportunity for parole, even if not a reduction in sentence, and that might be enough. Because frankly, I think he might, frankly, turn on Wendy eventually just because he just becomes increasingly bitter that he's

sitting there in jail while she's out living her life. Jason Solomon and some other friends started the Justice for Dan Markell Facebook and Twitter pages to remember Dan Markell and to keep people up to date on the case. Some time had passed before arrests were made, and the page was a way to keep the case in the public eye. Yeah, so I think it was a few years after his murder when there really hadn't been much progress, at least publicly. And Dan was the kind of person, because of the kind of job and kind of career he had had, that he's from Toronto. He went to school in the United States. Then he moved to Florida to become a law professor. He had spent some time in Israel here and there. And so he really had friends around the world. And so there were so many people around the world who couldn't believe that this had happened and wanted to know how it could

have happened and wanted to believe that there was going to be justice. And so, you know, we just created, you know, a Facebook page so that people could get any updates to the extent there were updates, that people could stay informed, that people could share thoughts, and that people could join together, as we eventually did, to urge the relevant authorities to move forward against the relevant suspects once more information came out. The murder of Dan Markell was so senseless. Jason Solomon is hoping that people can look at it and learn something from it. Donna Adelson will be back in court next month. This has ruined so many lives. You think about Charlie's own son.

You think about Dan and Wendy's kids. You think about the kids of Sigfredo Garcia and Katie McBonoa. Both of their parents are in jail. I just hope if there's any very little good that can come from this and the attention to it, it's that people in the future who think, hey, maybe I should hire a hitman to get rid of somebody who, you know, I think my life would be better if they were gone, doesn't usually work out that way. It ruins a lot of lives besides the immorality of it. You know, a lot of lives have gotten ruined in the process. The chances of people getting away with it are slim. People just need to figure out other ways to work out their problems. And going down this road is not good for anybody. That's it for this edition of Crime Fix. Thanks so much for joining us. We will be back here tomorrow night. Until then, have a great night.