Jury Sees Photos From Police Raid At Donna & Harvey Adelson's Home

Jonathan Grossman, a detective with the Miami Dade Sheriff's Office since 2011, testified in Donna Adelson's murder for hire trial in Tallahassee, Florida, today (Friday, August 29, day 6) about a search warrant conducted on November 14, 2023, at the Adelsons' home at 2127 Brickell Ave., apartment 1602.

He described finding luggage tagged for Saigon, Vietnam, via Dubai, camera equipment and visas for Harvey and Donna Adelson. A day planner and a note mentioning an M11 gun were also discovered.

Grossman detailed the search process, including the use of an electronics canine dog that alerted to a laptop. The search team, including Sergeant Michael Scott and Detective David Denmark, executed the warrant around 2:30 PM and completed the search by 3:00 PM.

Case background:

Donna Adelson, 75, is accused of orchestrating the murder-for-hire of her former son-in-law because she wanted her daughter and grandchildren to move to Miami.

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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