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The Murder Trial of Charlie Adelson - Jury Selection · Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott

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  It's the Morning Show with Preston Scott. Big story in the press box,
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  brought to you by Custom Care Dry Cleaning. And that's Grant Allen running the
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  radio program on Preston. Good deb You with us Thursday, and this will
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  be the day that the trial officially begins of Charlie Adelson. Charlie is accused
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  of being involved in the plot to kill former FSU law professor Dan Markel about
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  five minutes from where our studio is right now. He is charged with first
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  degree murder, conspiracy to commit first degree murder, and solicitation. We followed
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  this trial, and so has Carl Steinbeck, our guest, retired lieutenant colonel
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  with the US Army Judge Advocate General's Corps. He's now in private practice.
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  He's been a prosecutor, a public defender, and he joins us this morning
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  following the trial of Charlie Adelson. Good morning, Carl, How are you,
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  Carl, Yes, good morning Preston. Oops, there you are all
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  right? Hey? Tell me now we understand that the jury has been picked.
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  There's fifteen, so that's twelve with three alternates. Take me to both
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  sides of this. As a defense attorney, what kinds of questions are you
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  asking what are you trying to find out about a perspective juror Well, the
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  main thing of what they're trying to find out is how much they have learned
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  about the case beforehand? Have they form any opinions? Do they have an
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  inflexible attitude about the guilt or innocence of the accused? And they're also trying
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  to find out do they have something against in Charlie's particular case, or I
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  want to know whether they have some adversity to folks that are being wealthy and
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  things of that nature. So they're really trying to see if they have any
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  biases or prejudices against the accused. You're going as deep as okay, have
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  you been divorced? Where their custody issues? I mean, all of that
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  becomes fair game in the questioning, right right, because if they maybe have
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  animosity towards their ex spouse or something and they had a custy battle as well,
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  and if they're may be bitter about that, they may hold resentment against
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  the Aedelsons for that. Now, that's what the defense jorneys are trying to
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  flush out. You and I have a little bit of an intersection and that's
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  the YouTube channel Surviving the Survivor. I've been on a few of those episodes.
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  I know you have as well. Let's turn this around. I know
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  you've been following this case. I've been following it since it happened. I'm
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  curious as a prosecutor, knowing what you know, and some of the evidence
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  is certainly well known to the public. What are you looking for in a
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  jur Well, I think as a prosecutor, the main thing I'm looking for
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  is to make sure someone's going to follow the law. You don't have as
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  much of an issue with like biases and prejudices and things of that nature of
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  the prosecutor. But you can, for zacple as you have somebody that's against
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  law enforcement, or somebody's against a particular type of and they maybe they don't
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  want to listen to it because maybe they've been a victim themselves. There's a
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  lot of different dynamics you got to sort of flesh out as well. So
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  but mainly you don't have as much of a difficult job of trying to weed
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  out jurors as much as you as a defense council. So I think,
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  I think what I've heard about the fifteen, I've been selective. I think
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  it's a fair, fair assembly for both sides. When you're now looking at
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  opening statements being made today, Charlie's been held for a good while now,
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  and I understand that even Katie mcbanua is back in town and is at the
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  Leon County Jail, which suggests she's going to be testifying at some point early
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  on. But in your opening statement, taking take me to both sides of
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  this from a defense perspective first, and then we'll take a quick break.
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  Well, I think for the defense perspective that it's going to be something that
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  they're not going to not to look forward to. And think about how much
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  Katie has insider knowledge of what was going on with this murder scheme of Dan
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  Mark Hill. She was very close with Charlie Edelson and the murder scheme itself.
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  And we know this because the adult Ja Vita videotape after there was an
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  FBI bump in Miami towards Charlie's mother, Donna, it was really you really
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  set the scene and and a flory of activity for who was involved in this.
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  And so Katie when she got brought into the restaurant to talk about what
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  to do next with this bump because there was an outsider coming in thing.
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  They wanted five thousand dollars for one of the other hitmen, and so the
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  conversation that occurred between Charlie and Katie was very insightful to show that Charlie was
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  definitely in on it, in the major planner for this thing. So Katie
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  of course denied that in her two trials. But now she's, you know,
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  facing life without paroles, so she's got nothing but now the opportunity to
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  tell the truth. And I understand last week she'd been brought to the courthouse
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  for like twelve hours for interviewing among lawyers, whereas prosecution offense, I'm not
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  sure. But in any event, despite the fact she's lied two different times
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  for many hours on the witness stand in front of two differently on county juris,
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  I think that if she comes clean and she has a credible story on
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  why she lied and maybe how her defense attorneys were paid and those kinds of
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  things you follow the money, I think a jury's going to really buy into
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  this, and it's also going to take away the fact that the defense attorneys
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  are going to say that she's the one that made this scheme behind Charlie's back.
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  So I think if you have her there, they can assess her own
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  credibility and she can take this thing out from that. Oh, the fun
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  doesn't stop here. Find more on his blog WFLA FM dot com. Keyword
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  preston. We're going to be talking about it each morning for the duration of
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  the trial. Carl Steinbeck joins us this morning and former prosecutor and defence counsel,
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  not just in the military, but in the state Public Defender's office.
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  He's from McKinney, Texas. Following the trial of Charlie Aedelson. I have
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  mentioned Carl that I have served for six months years ago as a grand juror
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  on capital cases here in Leon County. My summary of what I have seen
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  and what I have heard in terms of the circumstantial evidence. Were I a
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  juror involved from a grand jury perspective, I would absolutely say there was probable
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  cause to move ahead with an indictment. That's my perspective. What's yours.
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  Oh, I think there's not only rock solid evidence to go forward with indictment,
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  but I think there's an overwhelming evidence of Charlie Aedelson's guilt I think the
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  jury's going to come back really quick on this, and I think it is.
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  If you look at the body language for Charlie, anybody who looks at
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  that, you're going to see that this guy looks like he's pretty much doesn't
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  have much of a defense. He's he can't even look the jury in the
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  eye. As defense tourneys asma stand up and look at the jury. He
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  couldn't even look him in the eye, and he just sort of looks such
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  like he's checked out. So it's probably the worst I've ever seen of all
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  the years I've seen defendants there facing serious crimes like this, He's probably has
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  the worst body language I've ever seen. Before we get too far down the
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  road, I want you to explain to our listeners the term bump. Uh.
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  I know what it means, but I want you to break down from
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  your experience when you say that there was a bump? What what was that?
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  What is that? Well, they're trying to get some activity. They
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  had a wiretap authorized and to initiate conversation among the folks that committed the crime,
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  the co conspirators. What they wanted to do was create in an event
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  to get them to start scurring and discuss this this event among themselves. So
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  the event was an FBI agent went undercover, went outside the high rise complex
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  of the the ap pearents of Charlie, Donna, and Harvey, and Donna
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  was happening to walk back or walked to the school of the grandkids that they
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  were watching over. And what happened was they came up to her and gave
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  her a letter that said we want five thousand dollars call this number. And
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  also wrapped around that note was the front headlines of the Tallahousee Democrat, which
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  indicated that it was a front page from when Dan Markel was murdered in his
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  garage, So right away they knew what this was about. He mentioned that,
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  you know, you took care of the We helped take care of the
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  issue up north. You now owe us some more. So that got this
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  automatically. Charlie trying to talk with his mom and they had wire taps going
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  on. It was a brilliant move by law enforcement, and so he got
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  a lot of incriminating information between Harvey and his mom Donna, and he also
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  then hurry up and met with Katie mcbanlaw and from there we have really additional
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  incriminating evidence against Charlie. In fact, he said to Katie and has picked
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  up on the tape that he wanted to make sure that they killed this agent.
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  They didn't know it was an agent, obviously, they thought it was
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  a relative of one they hit men. So what happened was that that's really
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  the main thing that kept Charlie behind bars. He probably would have been out
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  on bond if he wasn't talking about that. He also was talking about fleeing
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  the country if they had evidence against them that they knew about. So those
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  two things are really the main things that are the reason why a Dennis with
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  no prior Johnny record has still been behind bars for over a year and a
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  half now. Carl, I can't wait to continue the coverage of this because
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  I believe justice never ever gets old. And I appreciate your time this morning,
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  your expertise, and I'm sure we'll talk again. Thank you, sir,
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  Yes, sir, thank you. Carl Steinbeck with us and we're talking
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  about the trial of Charlie Aedelson. It will begin today with opening statements.
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  We will cover all of that tomorrow morning here in the Morning Show with Preston Scott