Judge won't block questions about book by ex-wife of slain law prof in her mom's murder trial
Donna Adelson’s 2023 booking photo. (Photo from the Miami-Dade Corrections and Rehabilitation Department via the Associated Press)
A judge in Tallahassee, Florida, indicated last week that he might allow prosecutors to question the ex-wife of a slain law professor about a book that she wrote in which a character felt stuck in a small Florida town because of her husband’s job.
Judge Stephen Everett of Florida’s 2nd Judicial Circuit considered the request by murder defendant Donna Adelson, who is accused in a plot to kill Florida State University College of Law professor Dan Markel, the ex-husband of Adelson’s daughter Wendi Adelson. Markel was shot and killed in his Tallahassee driveway in July 2014.
The Tallahassee Democrat has coverage via Yahoo News.
Prosecutors have alleged that Donna Adelson and her son, Charlie Adelson, plotted to kill Markel so that Wendi Adelson could relocate with the former couple’s two children to be near her family in Miami. Wendi Adelson is a lawyer who was formerly the director of FSU’s Public Interest Law Center.
Everett said Wendi Adelson could be questioned about the book, written before Markel’s murder, but it is “largely going to depend on what Wendi Adelson actually testifies to.” The book can likely be used to impeach inconsistent testimony, Everett said, but he indicated that he will further consider the defense request before ruling, according to the Tallahassee Democrat.
Adelson formerly testified that the lawyer character who felt stuck in her book, This Is Our Story, was based on a friend of hers and not herself. Defense lawyer Josh Zelman said at a hearing the lawyer character is not autobiographical, noting that the character’s children were adopted after a miscarriage, and that the lawyer character ended up being grateful to her husband for bringing her to the town.
Charlie Adelson, a dentist who is Wendi Adelson’s brother, was convicted of murder in November 2023 for hiring hit men to kill Markel. Wendi Adelson has not been charged.
Charlie and Wendi Adelson’s mother, Donna Adelson was arrested for murder at the Miami International Airport after she and her husband bought one-way tickets to Vietnam, which does not have an extradition treaty with the United States. The arrest happened days after Charlie Adelson’s conviction.
Three others convicted in the murder include the alleged triggerman and his accomplice and a woman accused of being a go-between between Charlie Adelson and the hired hit men.
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