Listen: Charlie, Donna Adelson jail call about ‘suicide,’ fleeing
In a jailhouse phone call, Donna Adelson told her son Charlie she was contemplating fleeing the country or perhaps even ending her life.
The judge presiding over the murder trial of Donna Adelson granted a defense motion to compel the state to provide raw cellphone data and other evidence.
However, during a hearing July 11, Leon Circuit Judge Stephen Everett expressed concerns that doing so could reopen the door to the same kind of conflict of interest that derailed her trial last year in the 2014 murder of Dan Markel.
Adelson’s defense lawyers, Josh Zelman and Jackie Fulford of Tallahassee, filed a motion June 27 seeking to to have the state turn over “raw, unredacted” emails and cell phone records, telephone conversations and text messages.
During court, Zelman said the defense had been told repeatedly by the state that it had provided the evidence. But after retaining an independent forensic data expert, they learned they didn’t have the requested materials.
He added the defense wants the raw phone data to verify state reports generated from Cellebrite, a proprietary tool police use to extract information from cellphones.
“That’s why we’re asking for that,” Zelman said.
Assistant State Attorney Georgia Cappleman had no objection, though she asked the defense to provide any reports from their expert to the state in a timely manner.
Everett asked Zelman at the outset of the hearing whether he had discussed with Adelson the possibility that the discovery could raise conflict issues. Zelman said he hadn’t because he didn’t believe that would be an issue.
After granting the motion, Everett cautioned the defense about any materials that might pertain to Adelson’s previous lawyers or her son, Charlie Adelson, who was convicted in 2023 in the contract killing of Markel.
Donna Adelson’s trial was postponed last year on the first day of jury selection after her attorney, Dan Rashbaum of Miami, who also represented her son, bowed out over conflicts of interest.
“As far as giving conflict-free representation to Mrs. Adelson, should anything change with your review of the Cellebrites that may include communications from prior counsel or deal with matters that pertain to information that’s provided by Charles Adelson, at that point we are going to have to revisit the issue,” Everett told the defense.
In other developments, Everett questioned the defense and state about upcoming motions they intend to file and whether Donna Adelson’s trial was still on track for Aug. 19, when jury selection is set to begin. He said the deadlines he had set were “not arbitrary.”
Zelman said the defense wasn’t trying to delay the trial but that it had not received all the discovery from the state. He said he expected to file three additional motions.
“The proposed date of when this would occur is not specific,” Everett said. “It’s not certain. It’s pretty much a moving piece of Jell-O.”
Cappleman said both sides were “working diligently” to meet deadlines but that she had matters that are still pending past deadline, including a report from a handwriting expert.
“I understand your comment about the Jell-O,” Cappleman said, “and I’ve got a couple of orders myself of Jell-O that I’m wrangling.”
Everett told both sides that their motions need to be filed by July 21. He set Aug. 8 for the final pretrial hearing.
Donna Adelson is charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy and solicitation in the 2014 murder of Markel, a Florida State University law professor. He was fatally shot at his home on Trescott Drive amid a bitter court battle with his ex-wife, Wendi Adelson, the defendant’s daughter.
Contact Jeff Burlew at [email protected] or 850-599-2180.
