Florida girl sentenced to life in murder-for-hire capturing dying of FSU regulation professor

A South Florida woman has been sentenced to life in jail plus further time for her place in a murder-for-hire plot that resulted inside the taking footage lack of lifetime of a neighborhood laws professor. 

Katherine Magbanua was sentenced Friday morning to life behind bars with out the potential for probation or parole, along with two consecutive 30-year jail phrases. Magbanua, 37, was convicted in May of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder and solicitation to commit murder. 

Prosecutors said she acted as a go-between for her ex-boyfriend, dentist Charlie Adelson, and the boys whom he allegedly employed to kill Florida State School laws professor Daniel “Danny” Markel eight years prior to now. 

Magbanua’s lawyer, Tara Kawass, had requested for the lightest doable sentence, primarily based on the Tallahassee Democrat. 

Kawass be taught an announcement on her client’s behalf, throughout which she suggested the courtroom: “She does consider Dan Markel every single day, She does consider his kids every single day. … Not a day goes by that she’s doesn’t categorical how her coronary coronary heart is broken for the Markel family. One issue that I can say that Ms. Magbanua hopes and prays for is that justice is ongoing and has not been reached on this case, and he or she needs each one who had a hand on this and is conscious of 1 factor about this to be dropped at justice.” 

Markel, a excellent lawyer, was on the heels of a contentious divorce with Adelson’s sister, Wendi, when he was gunned down in his car on July 18, 2014. The pair had disagreed and sparred in courtroom paperwork over positive factors, particularly, Wendi’s relocation from Tallahassee to be nearer to her family in south Florida.

Tallahassee Police Division investigators said Markel dropped his children off at daycare spherical 8:50 a.m. roughly 5 miles from his dwelling after which made his answer to Premier Effectively being and Well being Coronary heart, the place he arrived spherical 9:12 a.m., primarily based on a attainable set off affidavit shared on-line in 2016.

Police found {that a} Toyota Prius had adopted Markel not solely into the automobile parking space of the well being facility, nevertheless was moreover “trailing Markel’s car” sooner than and after his time inside the well being membership.

“Investigators think about the suspects inside the Prius adopted the sufferer all by the morning and once more to this residence, the place the sufferer was shot inside the head as he sat in his car,” the affidavit states. “Markel’s neighbor heard what he believed to be a gunshot and regarded out the window, the place he observed a small silver or light-colored car, resembling a Prius, backing out of the sufferer’s driveway.”

Markel was rushed to a neighborhood hospital, nevertheless couldn’t be saved. 

Magbanua had lived with one among many accused gunmen, Sigfredo Garcia, with whom she had two children. She had beforehand had a relationship with Charlie Adelson, and had as quickly as labored for Adelson’s family’s dental office. 

Garcia and his alleged accomplice, Luis Rivera, had been charged in June 2016. Magbanua was arrested months later in October 2016. Garcia was convicted in 2019 of first-degree murder, and has appealed his conviction. Rivera pleaded accountable to second-degree murder. 

Charlie Adelson, age 45, was arrested in April 2022 after he was indicted by a grand jury. He was charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder and solicitation to commit murder. He pleaded not accountable.