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Monday, December 11, 2023

Donna Adelson's Dark Fall: From Matriarch Of 'Five-Star Family' To Murder-For-Hire

Miami Herald, From Mom of a ‘Five-Star Family’ to Murder-For-Hire Charge: Donna Adelson’s Dark Fall:

Adelson FamilyDonna Adelson wanted nothing but the best for her children.

A former teacher, she worked part-time in her husband Harvey’s busy dentistry practice while juggling the demands of three children, community volunteering and active membership in her Coral Springs synagogue.

Her driving goal — said family friend Ben Graber, a gynecologist and former state lawmaker — was to raise her kids to be academic achievers, humanitarians and upstanding citizens.

“They are what I would call a ‘five-star’ family.”

That makes it hard for Graber, who knew the Adelsons for 40 years, to fathom how a family he considered pillars of the community would be at the center of the most notorious murder-for-hire plot in Florida in the last decade.

Both Donna Adelson, a 73-year-old grandmother, and her son, Charles, 47, are behind bars. Donna is charged with first-degree murder and solicitation of murder – and her son has already been convicted — in the 2014 Tallahassee slaying of Dan Markel, a Florida State University law scholar once married to Wendi Adelson, a fellow legal professor who is Donna’s only daughter.

But for all the court hearings and attention, it still seems almost incomprehensible why a mother and son from such a respectable, successful family would launch what prosecutors have described as a cold-blooded but sloppily planned killing to win a child-custody fight. The risks were immense for Donna — she could end up in prison for the rest of her life and destroy the family she so treasured.

It’s the question few who knew the family have been willing to address. Former neighbors won’t talk. Donna’s friends seemed to have disappeared. Their former rabbi, who was contacted by the Herald, also declined to speak about a family that was part of their temple for years. ...

Over the years, Donna Adelson took control of all aspects of her children’s future, pushing them to become successful: overseeing their schooling, organizing their play dates, sending them to summer camp, shuttling them to and from their extra-curricular activities. Son Robert, in a podcast about the case, said that Donna Adelson, and sometimes Harvey, even signed off on who they dated.

All three Adelson children excelled in college: Robert, the oldest, graduated summa cum laude and phi beta kappa from Tulane and graduated with honors from the University of South Florida College of Medicine with a specialty in otolaryngology.

Charles Adelson attended the University of Central Florida, receiving a bachelor’s degree in Micro and Molecular Biology in 1999, and Nova Southeastern University, from which he received a degree in dentistry, later becoming a periodontist in his father’s practice.

Wendi studied Peace and Conflict Studies at Brandeis University, where she graduated magna cum laude in 2001, then obtained her masters at the University of Cambridge before earning her law degree in 2006 from the University of Miami.

There was one particularly important parental desire: The Adelsons, who were members of the reform temple Beth Orr in Coral Springs, believed their children should marry within their faith.

Robert, however, met and fell in love with a woman who was Indian-American and practiced Hinduism. His parents refused to accept him marrying her.

In an interview for the “Over My Dead Body” podcast, Robert Adelson said that for years his parents had threatened to disown him if he married his girlfriend, who was also a doctor. In 2003, he finally broke it off and married “a nice jewish girl from Dallas,” he said in the podcast, available on Wondery.com. The engagement was proudly announced by his parents in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

But it didn’t last. The couple divorced and Robert reunited with his former girlfriend. To his surprise, his parents attended their traditional Hindu wedding ceremony.

“I do think my parents did everything they could do to make things better,” Robert said in the podcast.

But there was still a rift in the family, which didn’t seem to heal, he said. He and his wife live near Albany. ...

Charles, the son convicted last month in plotting the hit, was having different issues, some professional ones.

“Charlie is a risk taker,” Graber said. “I’ve known him since he was four years old. He is a playboy. A middle child. He has delusions of grandeur. In his mind, he wants to be James Bond but he is a periodontist.” ...

The family matriarch’s hopes for Jewish grandchildren seemed to rest with Wendi, who had moved with her husband to Tallahassee where both taught at Florida State University. They had two boys, and had settled in with new friends in a nice upscale neighborhood. Still, Wendi soon became disenchanted as Markel’s career took off while her career took a back seat to raising the children.

In a foreshadowing, Wendi Adelson published a fictional book in 2011 in which the female protagonist lawyer leaves her condescending husband. ...

“All I see is the demonization of the family in the news, and on the podcast. It’s a one-sided picture,” Graber said. “Harvey is like in a daze, teary eyed, choking up. He told me ‘I don’t know what’s going on here, but I can tell you this — none of it is true.”

Complete TaxProf Blog coverage:

https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2023/12/donna-adelsons-dark-fall-from-matriarch-of-five-star-family-to-murder-for-hire-.html

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