Those following the Dan Markel murder-for-hire case may be interested to know that Donna Adelson was arrested!
Dan was a prominent legal scholar at Florida State University.
After he and his wife Wendi Adelson had an acrimonious divorce in 2012-13, Wendi's brother Charlie and his mother, Donna Adelson, paid two hitmen to kill him, so that Wendi would get sole custody of their two boys, and be able to move them to the Miami area (where the Adelson family lives). The two hitmen themselves were convicted a long time ago Earlier this year, the state also convicted Katie Magbanua, Charlie's ex-girlfriend who served as the go-between connecting the Adelsons and the killers (she was also a longtime girlfriend of one of the hitmen, Sigfredo Garcia). Charlie was convicted last week.
Observers expected Donna to be charged next. And tonight she was detained by the FBI at the airport. Perhaps she was trying to flee the country? It's not entirely clear what happened here. But I assume she was arrested under a warrant stemming from the Markel case, and will be charged for her role in the murder-for-hire scheme. I won't go into details here.
But I think the evidence against her is strong (comparable to that which recently convicted her son).
If convicted, she too would face a sentence of life imprisonment. Prosecutors could seek the death penalty; but they chose not to in Charlie's case, and I assume would not here, either. Given that Donna is 73, any lengthy sentence would essentially be the equivalent of life imprisonment anyway.
I am not normally enthusiastic about the prospect of imprisoning an elderly woman and grandmother. But Donna Adelson had the father of her grandchildren brutally murdered because she wanted her daughter to be able to move with the kids to Miami. She's not exactly the typical doting grandmother here.