In today’s (Aug. 25) case management hearing, Rashbaum told Judge
Robert Wheeler that his team anticipates a more extended trial than the scheduled two weeks.
“Our case could be lengthy and could go a week, five to six days of testimony,” Rashbaum said, noting that this would bring the trial out several days from its current Nov. 9 closing. Jury selection will begin on Monday, Oct. 23, with opening statements and the state’s case likely to begin that Friday or the following Monday.
What does more time mean for Charlie? Or rather, what does Rashbaum hope more time might mean for the team of prosecutors trying the case and the 12 jurors who will pause their lives to fulfill this civic duty?
More time with a jury spells mental fatigue and more chances to introduce various threads of doubt about Charlie’s guilt. To this end, Rashbaum previously forecast what he claims will be a far more interesting trial than the previous two in this case, in which explosive, “crazy” truths may come to light.
But the state’s theory of the case has already been successfully tried twice: first, in the conviction of hit man
Sigfredo Garcia, and then, in the conviction of
Katherine Magbanua, who acted as an intermediary between Garcia (the father of her children) and members of the Adelson family who hired them.
Beyond these
convictions and life sentences, both Magbanua and accomplice
Luis Rivera have turned state witness, with the testimony we’ve heard to date affirming a dreadful truth: Charlie masterminded the murder along with his
sister, Wendi Adelson, and mother, Donna Adelson, so that Wendi could relocate to South Florida with the Markel boys, change their last names, restart her life with proceeds from Dan’s life insurance, and relieve herself of the inconvenience of an ex-husband who sought to hold her accountable to the terms of their marital settlement agreement.
In the year before his murder, Markel uncovered what he believed to be financial misdoings by Wendi that could have led to devastating professional consequences for her and had initiated a legal process to limit unsupervised access by Donna to his boys following her unyielding disparagement of him to them. The motive in this murder is clear,
matched by extraordinary evidence that Charlie took action to fulfill his mother’s and sister’s wishes.........
'In a war of attrition, morale is the key armor.'
floridapolitics.com
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