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Charlie Adelson Trial Day 1 · Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott

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  Thirty five minutes past the hour of the Morning Show with Preston Scott has promised
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  we will devote time daily until we get a verdict to the trial of Charlie
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  Aedelson. The first day of the trial took place yesterday, and joining us
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  on the program is Karen Ciphers. She is covering the trial for Florida Politics.
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  Is also a friend of the Markel family and has been a guest on
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  this program. Karen, good morning, How are you? Good morning,
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  Preston, Thanks so much for having me back my pleasure. What surprises took
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  place yesterday? Were there any who I think that I would say? I
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  actually had to go back and re listen to the defense opening. It was
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  probably the most confusing new theory that we've heard yet. As anyone who's been
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  watching this trial knows, there's been one very consistent state theory of this case
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  from since twenty sixteen, at least as far as we've heard, which is
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  that members of the Adelson family hired three people to carry out the execution.
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  We are now going on the fourth or fifth different defense theory that we've heard
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  from the various defense teams that have come up here to try their cases.
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  What did we hear yesterday that was new? Well, I mean, we're
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  going to say it's new. It's not true, but it is new.
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  So the defense is claiming that no member of the Adelson family hired anybody to
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  kill Dan Martel. The defense now was claiming that Charlie's then girlfriend overheard him
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  complain about his sister's litigious divorce. She knew he had a lot of money
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  and got a plan in her head. She somehow masterminded a plan, looped
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  in her sometimes husband, sometimes the father of her children to carry out the
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  act and then extort the family for years. They claim that the shooter was
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  motivated to do this because he loved Katie so much and this was a way
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  in his mind to get Charlie out of the picture. There's just a lot
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  of elements. I'm sorry if it sounds confusing, but that's literally what it
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  is. It is a confusing narrative. And of course, at no point,
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  big hole in the narrative, did the Aedelson family do what anyone would
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  do if they were being wrongly extorted, and that is go to the police.
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  Correct. In fact, I'm assuming jurors might hear prior jurors have heard
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  wiretaps in which Charlie says to Katie and says to his mother, well,
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  if you're being threatened, you go to the police. Very clearly, if
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  you're being threatened, you go to the police. Now, this would be
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  approximately two years after the alleged first extortion began of him in a family where
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  he claims that Katie disclosed to him what happened and said that if they didn't
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  get paid within forty eight hours, a member of his family would be next.
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  So that's clearly a threat. He clearly did not go to the police,
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  nor did he go to the police after the three alleged bad guys were
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  put behind bars. For those of you just tuning in, Karen Ciphers is
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  covering the murder trial of Charlie Adelson for Florida Politics. Is a friend of
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  the Markel family and the three convictions so far, two convictions and a plea
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  deal. Luis Rivera pled and turned into a state's witness in the trial of
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  Sigfredo Garcia, who is the trigger man that was convicted of murdering Dan Markel,
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  and there's very little doubt about that. Katie mcbanuwa is the person that
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  is alleged to be kind of the go between between the family, beginning with
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  Charlie Aedelson and the two men who carried out the crime. Wendy Adelson appeared
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  on the witness stand. Were you surprised she was called so quickly? I
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  suppose, as though you know her part of the story is really setting the
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  stage for the motive. So I suppose not. And certainly her testimony did
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  give clues as to why her family would want Dan Martel eliminated. It was
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  interesting to me. Wendy had great recall of conversations which support Charlie the family,
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  dynamic, little meetings, little parties. But boy, she had trouble
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  recalling much of anything else. That's correct. I mean, her recall is
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  spotty. It varies between different testimonies. We don't know what she would have
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  said or not said during a defense deposition many years ago, because she chose
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  to invoke her at amendment right about three hundred times. So it's hard to
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  really piece together a consistent thread. There. Get it off your mind,
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  get it off your chest. You have a story you want to share,
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  write him at Preston at iHeartRadio dot com. Welcome to the Morning Show with
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  Preston Scott forty one minutes after the hour, Karen Cipher's with us talking about
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  the trial of Charlie Aedelson. Day one. Help me understand is you know,
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  Wendy is testifying as a witness for the prosecution, but yet seemed advisarial
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  the defense, as opposed to a typical cross examination of a prosecution witness,
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  seemed to be there to rehabilitate her. Is that your read? Yeah,
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  it would actually seem so far the defense has been more defending of Wendy than
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  of Charlie, is what it sounded like to me to this point. To
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  clarify, you know, Wendy is there as a state witness. She's also
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  been named as an unindicted co conspirator by the state, so her testimony here
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  confers some limited immunity for anything truthful that she says on this Fann. But
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  yeah, that is an interesting dynamic for sure. Yeah. I wanted to
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  get to that for a second because one of the things she seemed to be
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  trapped in, well, I'll be i direct and say she seemed to be
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  trapped in a lie. There was a motion out there to keep her mom,
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  Donna Adelson, from having basically visitation rights with the children without supervision.
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  That motion was pending when Dan Markel was murdered. Wendy said that her mom
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  had no idea about the motion, but Georgia Kappelman promptly showed that not only
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  did Donna get an email with the motion, but that that motion was emailed
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  by Wendy to twelve people in total. That seemed to be pretty damning to
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  Wendy. Sure, I mean, she claimed she claimed to not have discussed
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  that particular emotion with her mother. The fact that it related to her mother
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  and she wouldn't have discussed it with her is unbelievable to begin with. You
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  know, I can't I can't gotten them explain the importance in our final minutes
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  here because it's chilling to me. Charlie Adelson joked with Wendy that it would
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  be cheaper to buy her a new television than to hire a hitman to kill
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  Dan Markel. It allegedly was a joke, But this idea of a TV
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  and a TV repairman being code for the fact that a murder was coming is
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  a theme that we heard yesterday. Explain to our listeners what that's about.
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  Well, so, when Wendy and Dan divorce. The storyline goes that her
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  brother, Charlie, said that it was cheaper to buy her a television as
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  a divorce president than to hire a hitman to kill her ex. You know,
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  after the murder actually happened, we learned that Wendy's alibi for that morning
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  was a TV repairman at her home, repairing the very televis vision that her
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  brother had purchased for her. Even there there's some confusion. The repairman said
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  that it wasn't repairable, and then she claims to have an eighteen minute conversation
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  with Charlie after that, debating whether to repair it or replace it. And
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  then later when Donna gets bumped by the undercover FBI agent, she calls Charlie
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  immediately and says to him, I was approached and basically I'm being blackmailed and
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  this TV will be about five, meaning about five thousand dollars. Interesting was
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  part of the testimony yesterday that Donna said that she reached out to Wendy and
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  told her that the TV repairman was coming tomorrow, and that happened to be
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  the date that Dan was murdered. It's unclear. It sounds like perhaps she
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  sent Wendy message saying what the window was for when the TV repairman would be
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  there, which was basically the entire morning of the morning that he would be
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  murdered. So that's certainly raises eyebrows considering the number of other times that this
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  TV word was coming up in conversation between family members. Well, and the
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  question was why would Donna Adelson have anything to say about a repair of her
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  daughter's TV in Tallahassee right right? And if that's the level of closeness that
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  they have, can one believe that Wendy would not have shared with her mother
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  emotion which would have restricted access to the kids, which, by the way,
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  hearing Wendy say yesterday that her parents have always had unfettered access to her
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  children, and yet the Marquelle parents have been kept at such a distance that
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  is just heartbreaking. All Right, we're going to keep following what's happening.
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  And thanks so much for the time, Karen, thank you so much pressing,
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  and that's Karen Cipher's with us. I strongly recommend you keep an eye
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  on this thing because this is about real justice. The low hanging fruit was
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  Sigfred gar Garcia, Luis Rivera and Katie Makebanawa again. Katie's going to come
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  to the witness stand. I don't know if it's today or next week.
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  My guess is she's going to testify as to what was said in a recording
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  that the judge said could be played but no transcript could be provided. I
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  think she's to tell what was said and make it very clear to the jurors.
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  We'll see more to come on The Morning Show with Preston Scott