Charlie Adelson's Ex-Girlfriend Testifies In His Mother's Murder-For-Hire Trial

June Umchinda is a real estate agent and former girlfriend of Charlie Adelson, who is serving life in prison for hiring hitmen who killed his former brother-in-law.

Umchinda testified in the trials of hitman Sigfredo Garcia and Adelson's former girlfriend, Katherine "Katie" Magbanu, as well as Adelson's trial in 2023.

On Tuesday (August 26, day 3), she returned to the witness stand to testify against Adelson's mother, Donna Adelson, who is charged with the same three crimes he was convicted of: murder, conspiracy and solicitation.

07:00 "And at some point, I guess you learned through the media that Charlie was under investigation for potentially having a role in the murder of Dan Markel?"

19:19 Cross-exam by Adelson's lawyer Jackie Fulford

"We were going through a horrible breakup at that time, yes."

Case background:

Adelson is accused of conspiring with her son Charlie Adelson more than a decade ago to hire hitmen to kill Dan Markel, who was a Florida State University law professor and the father of her two young grandsons.

Her defense is that she had no knowledge of what hitmen Luis Rivera and Sigfredo Garcia were going to do, and that prosecutors are only focusing on her hatred for Markel to show she had a motive to want him murdered, when there's no evidence she was actually involved.

Rivera, a former gang leader, is serving a 19-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to second-degree murder and testifying against Garcia, who fired the fatal shots, as well as the woman who linked Garcia to the victim: Katherine "Katie" Magbanua, who was Garcia's on-again, off-again girlfriend and also was in a relationship with Adelson's son Charlie Adelson.

Garcia was convicted in 2019 and Magbanua in 2022.

Rivera also testified in Charlie Adelson's trial in 2023, and Adelson was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. After their son's trial, Donna Adelson and her husband, Harvey, bought one-way tickets to Vietnam. Police arrested her on the jetway at Miami International Airport on charges of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and solicitation of first-degree murder.

Her trial is expected to go through Sept. 5 in Leon County Circuit Court in Tallahassee, Florida.

Donna Adelson's lawyers are Josh Zelman and Jackie Fulford of Tallahassee. Assistant State Attorneys Georgia Cappleman and Sarah Kathryn Dugan are prosecuting.

The judge is Stephen Everett, who is the chief judge of Florida's 2nd Judicial Circuit.
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