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Charlie the Dentist is a world away from his sun-kissed South Florida babes and Ferrari-owning lifestyle.
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No, at this point, the prognosis could be grim for periodontist Dr. Charles Adelson.
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Adelson is slated to go on trial in a Tallahassee, Fla., courtroom on Monday.
He is accused of being the mastermind behind the brutal murder of his sister Wendi’s ex-husband, Toronto-native Dan Markel, a University of Florida law professor.
It has taken nearly a decade for the investigation and legal machinations to wind its way to the finish line. It is a tale of money, murder and marital discord under the blistering Florida sun.
In 2014, beloved academic Dan Markel and his then-wife, Wendi Adelson, were in the midst of a bitter custody dispute. She wanted to take their two young sons to south Florida, where her parents live.
Markel was dead set against his children moving 740 kilometres away. He was unlikely to go along with any move.
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Convicted hitman, Luis Rivera later summed up the alleged motive: “The lady wants her two kids back.”
Dan Markel had to go.
And on July 19, 2014, he was shot to death in the driveway of his Tallahassee home in what homicide detectives called a murder-for-hire plot.
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The murder of Dan Markel was a difficult puzzle from the beginning. Cops had motive, but the investigation required a staggering amount of legwork, involving wiretaps, surveillance, bogus hitmen and myriad other techniques.
The first dominoes to fall were the contract murderers and the intermediary who put the alleged client and killers together.
The fixer was a woman named Katherine Magbanua, who worked in Charlie Adelson’s office and was a sometime playmate of the dentist. She was sentenced to life in prison, plus two additional 30-year sentences on charges of conspiracy to commit murder and solicitation to commit murder.
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Magbanua testified she convinced her baby daddy, Sigfredo Garcia, to kill Dan Markel. The payday was said to be in the range of $100,000 to take Markel off the board. He, too, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. A third man pleaded guilty to second-degree murder.
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For cops, there was little doubt the Markel murder did not happen in a vacuum. Three people do not suddenly decide to knock off a total stranger six hours away.
That left the Adelson family with Charlie the Dentist being the first to step up to the plate on Monday.
His legal eagles have scrambled to get evidence — particularly explosive wiretaps — tossed. But many of their arguments have been torpedoed by Judge Stephen Everett.
— Audio tapes of a 2016 lunchtime meeting between Charlie the Dentist and Magbanua at a South Florida resto can stay, but not the transcript. Charlie tells his former gal pal: “If they had any evidence, we would have already gone to the airport.”
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— Also allowed is the testimony of Wendi Adelson’s former boyfriend, Jeff Lacasse. In the earlier murder trials, Lacasse testified that Wendi’s griping about her divorce was “incessant.” She also allegedly shared that Charlie the Dentist “joked” about buying her a TV as a divorce gift, as it was “cheaper than a hitman”. Wendi also allegedly revealed that Charlie had seriously looked into hiring a hitman.
— Markel and Wendi’s divorce papers will be admitted into evidence. Many of the motions were filed by Dan and included his mother-in-law Donna’s disparagement of him in front of his kids, alleged financial shenanigans by Wendi and her alleged breach of their marital settlement.
— Last week, it was revealed that Wendi’s parents, Donna and Harvey Adelson, will not be taking the stand at Charlie’s big show. He waved his rights to call his parents as witnesses, and the state withdrew subpoenas compelling them to testify. The couple had been threatened with contempt of court.
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And now, jury selection begins Monday and is expected to take three days before the opening statements.
Prosecutors and homicide detectives suspect the whole Adelson clan was allegedly involved in the murder plot. Harvey, Donna and Wendi have not been charged with anything. The family has denied any involvement in Markel’s murder.
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Charlie the Dentist allegedly cheated often on his later girlfriend, realtor June Umchinda. She earlier testified that Adelson’s mom, Donna, felt “haunted” by Dan Markel’s murder — and that Charlie was a nervous wreck after the sting operation was put in play.
At his mansion, he kept stacks of cash stapled together, she said. The killers received money that had been stapled together.
Dan Markel would have turned 51 on Oct. 9. He left a lifetime of promise.
For Charlie the Dentist, the days ahead could be equally dark.
bhunter@postmedia.com
@HunterTOSun
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