Donna Adelson, the matriarch of the South Florida family behind the 2014 murder-for-hire of Dan Markel, is scheduled to be sentenced to life in prison a bit sooner than initially expected.
Leon Circuit Judge Stephen Everett set her sentencing hearing for 3 p.m. Monday, Oct. 13. Everett, who presided over her trial starting in late August, set the date after her pre-sentence investigation was handed in by the state.
State Attorney Jack Campbell said she was entitled to a pre-sentence investigation, something her lawyers requested, because the Markel murder marked her first felony conviction. However, regardless of what the report says, she faces a sentence no shorter than life in prison.
“There’s a mandatory sentence here,” Campbell said. “There’s no discretion. She must be sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for a conviction of first-degree murder.”
Campbell added that pre-sentence investigation could influence how Everett sentences her on the other two charges.
“Count 2 and 3 are rather academic when you’re doing life on Count 1,” he said.
After three days of jury selection and eight days of testimony, Adelson was found guilty Sept. 4 of first-degree murder, conspiracy and solicitation in her former son-in-law’s murder.
She was the second person in her family and the fifth overall to be convicted in the killing of Markel, a Florida State University law professor who shared two sons with his ex-wife, Wendi Adelson, the defendant’s daughter. Prosecutors have long said the Adelsons wanted Markel out of the way so Wendi Adelson and the boys could relocate to South Florida to be with her family.
Charlie Adelson, Donna Adelson’s youngest son, was convicted of the same three crimes during his trial in 2023. The two hitmen, one a Latin Kings Gang leader, and a conduit between them and Charlie Adelson also were convicted.
Donna Adelson is being held at the Leon County Detention Center. After sentencing, she is expected to begin the process of transferring to a state prison.
It’s unclear at this point whether she will be sent to prison in Florida or elsewhere. Charlie Adelson was initially incarcerated in Florida before he was later transferred out of security concerns to a prison in South Dakota.
Assistant State Attorneys Georgia Cappleman and Sarah Kathryn Dugan prosecuted Adelson, who is represented by criminal defense attorneys Joshua Zelman and Jackie Fulford of Tallahassee.
A previously scheduled case management conference for Oct. 14 was expected to be canceled.
Contact Jeff Burlew at jburlew@tallahassee.com or 850-599-2180.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Donna Adelson faces a ‘mandatory sentence’ of life in prison on Oct. 13
Reporting by Jeff Burlew, Tallahassee Democrat / Tallahassee Democrat
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