A man convicted in a 2014 murder-for-hire plot will not be receiving a new trial. Florida’s First District Court of Appeal ruled Wednesday that Charlie Adelson will remain in prison on the murder charge solely because the arguments made on behalf of his appeal were made orally, not in writing.
Murder-For-Hire Plot
In July 2014, former Florida State University professor Dan Markel was found fatally shot in the garage of his Tallahassee home. His ex-wife, Wendi, maiden name Adelson, and he were in the middle of an intense custody battle in which she was denied permission to move over 400 miles away with the children to live near her mother in South Florida.
The case went cold until April 2022 when police made their first arrest: Wendi’s brother, Dr. Charlie Adelson. Police records show that at the time, he and his girlfriend, Katherine Magbanua, hired two hit men from the Latin Kings gang to kill Markel.
Adelson was convicted of first-degree murder, solicitation, and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in 2023, along with his girlfriend, who was also sentenced to life in prison. In January 2025, Adelson’s team filed a motion seeking to relinquish jurisdiction to the trial court, but the First District Court of Appeal denied it.
Impartial Jury Argument
Judge Lori S. Rowe, Thomas D. Winokur, and M. Kemmerly Thomas heard arguments from Adelson’s attorney, Michael Ufferman, while he did not appear himself. Ufferman argued that the trial judge, Stephen Everett, erred when denying the defendant a change of venue. He claimed the jury was already biased due to the case’s media exposure.
The judges noted to Ufferman that in the state of Florida, the defense must submit a formal written motion for a change of venue after the jury is seated but before it is sworn in. Ufferman argued that the defense did not waive its objection to the jury, and if the judges find that to be true, they should consider the waiver a fundamental error, meaning the case could be overturned.
Representing the state of Florida, Charles Lee counterargued Ufferman’s arguments, stating that the defense’s failure to voice an objection was their acceptance of the jury. Lee further argued that the question of whether the failure to object constituted a structural error was moot because it was not raised in the initial appeal brief.
Appeals Court Ruling
The appellate court found no evidence of bias among the jury, according to its ruling. Most jurors said they did not know about the case or had only limited knowledge when completing their questionnaires. They had not yet formed an opinion on the defendant’s guilt.
“Adelson has failed to show that the trial court encountered difficulty in seating an impartial jury,” the court writes.
“After questioning 130 prospective jurors over three days, the trial court evaluated their credibility and determined that the jurors seated for Adelson’s trial could be impartial. And nothing in the record supports an argument that any of the seated jurors were not impartial. For this reason, Adelson cannot show that it was impossible for the trial court to seat an impartial jury.”
Mastermind Behind The Murder
Charlie Adelson was not the only member of the family suspected of being behind the murder-for-hire plot. Donna Adelson, the matriarch of the family, was arrested at Miami International Airport in 2023 and, two years later, convicted of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and solicitation of murder in the for-hire killing.
Prosecutors said that Donna was the mastermind behind the entire killing and put her family up to it. However, the daughter and ex-wife, Wendi, has never been charged with anything. Donna was also handed down a life sentence on October 13, 2025, but no appeals have been made thus far on her behalf.
