FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – The U.S. Marshals arrested a Fort Lauderdale-based dentist on Thursday in Broward County.
Charles Adelson is facing charges in a 2014 murder in Tallahassee. A Leon County grand jury indicted him on Wednesday after new evidence in the case surfaced in an alleged murder-for-hire plot.
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The victim was Adelson’s former brother-in-law Dan Markel, a 41-year-old Harvard-trained attorney who was a Florida State University law professor for nearly a decade.
Markel had two sons with Adelson’s sister, Wendi Adelson, an attorney who also worked for FSU. The two finalized their divorce in 2013 and they had an ongoing battle over her desire to relocate.
Markel filed a motion on March 26, 2014, claiming his former mother-in-law, Donna Adelson, talked badly about him to his sons, records show.
On July 18, 2014, Markle took his sons to daycare, went to the gym, and parked his car in the garage of his Betton Hills home. He was shot in the head twice and died a day later at the hospital.
The new incriminating evidence against Charles Adelson, 45, is centered on the audio of a conversation secretly recorded in April 2016, according to authorities.
The audio was also evidence in the murder cases against Katherine “Katie” Magbanua, Charles Adelson’s ex-girlfriend, and Sigfredo “Tuto” Garcia, Magbanua’s ex-boyfriend.
Detectives accused Magbanua of mediating the murder-for-hire deal and Garcia of fatally shooting Markel. Magbanua and Garcia had two children together.
Garcia was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 2019. The judge declared a mistrial in Magbanua’s case.
The FBI and the CIA were involved in the audio that prosecutors have in the case against Charles Adelson of a conversation that he had with Magbanua.
Charles Adelson is facing charges of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and solicitation of murder.
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Local 10 News Assignment Desk Editor Allison Cubillos contributed to this report. ABC News contributed to this report.