A woman who acted as the facilitator in the murder-for-hire of a law professor has been arrested, police said.
A woman who acted as a go-between in the murder-for-hire of a law professor has been arrested in Florida, according to authorities.
Katherine Magbanua, 31, faces a first-degree murder charge in the killing of Daniel Markel, who was shot dead in his driveway in 2014 in the middle of a custody fight with his ex-wife, Wendi Adelson, investigators said.
She is being held at the Broward County Jail. She is expected to be extradited to Leon County in northern Florida.
Magbanua provided the connection between Adelson’s family and two men arrested in May on suspicion of killing the Florida State University Law School instructor in Tallahassee, authorities said.
Adelson, her parents and her brother had been trying to move the woman and her children to south Florida over the objections of Markel, a police report said, according to the Sun Sentinel.
Magbanua enlisted a boyfriend, Sigfredo Garcia, and his friend, Luis Rivera, to pull off the shooting, the report said. Both men have pleaded not guilty.
After the professor’s death, Magbanua received paychecks signed by Adelson’s mother, Donna Adelson, from the Adelson Institute for Aesthetics and Implant Dentistry, investigators said.
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The woman received more than $56,000, according to authorities.
No one in the Adelson family has been charged in the case.
An Adelson attorney issued a statement in August denying the family’s involvement in Markel’s killing.
"We are issuing this statement because the media continues to run stories suggesting — without any support or evidence — that the Adelsons were somehow involved in Dan's murder.
"To be clear, none of the Adelsons — Wendi, her brother Charlie, or their parents Donna and Harvey — had anything to do with Dan's murder."
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