Dan Markel murder trial: Garcia gets life, now prosecutors turn their attention to Magbanua

Leon County jurors opted not to give the death penalty to Sigfredo Garcia, the Miami man convicted of murdering Florida State law professor and father of two Dan Markel.

A jury of 10 women and two men deliberated for just 40 minutes Tuesday before returning with their recommendation to spare Garcia and sentence him to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Assistant State Attorney Georgia Cappleman said she was satisfied with the jury’s decision. But she was setting her sights on retrying Garcia’s longtime girlfriend, Katherine Magbanua, whose case ended with a hung jury Friday.

 “We will be going forward with that case,” Cappleman said after Garcia’s sentencing. “The state will retry Ms. Magbanua.”

The 34-year-old faces charges of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder and solicitation of murder.

Cappleman, who argued for death, said Garcia, 37, killed Markel for financial gain in a cold, calculated and premeditated manner.

A family torn apart forever

Markel’s family sat through the entire two-week trial, watching as prosecutors laid out evidence against Garcia and Magbanua, whose cases were tried together, to show that their son was killed as part of a murder-for-hire plot orchestrated by the family of his ex-wife Wendi Adelson.

His mother, Ruth Markel, briefly addressed reporters after sentencing outside the courtroom.

“We respect the process,” she said. “There’s a lot more work to be done, and we’re looking forward and hoping it will be done soon. We want to thank all of the law enforcement and the State Attorney’s Office.”

Leon Circuit Judge James C. Hankinson imposed a sentence of life for the murder charge and another 30 years for conspiracy to commit murder.

Garcia hung his head and quietly talked with his attorney Saam Zangeneh about the appeals process and asked him to call his mother. Zangeneh said Garcia was still numb from being convicted of murder.

Concern for Magbanua

“In a death penalty case, when you get a guilty on a first-degree murder, that’s it. Your life is over,” Zangeneh said. “You’re either going to die of natural causes in a maximum-security prison or you’re going to die on death row as a result of lethal injection.”

Garcia declined two chances to take the stand during the trial, and a third prior to his sentence being read. Zanegneh said his hesitance was rooted in his interest in protecting Magbanua.

“He didn’t want to hurt Katie, so he chose not to take the stand,” he said. “He was very concerned about his testimony hurting or implicating Katie.”

Yesterday's wrap-up:'My life was shattered.' Dan Markel's mother says son's murder continues to torment family

What's coming:Dan Markel murder trial: What happens next to Sigfredo Garcia, Katherine Magbanua and the Adelson family?

A trial tick-tock:Dan Markel murder trial: Everything we learned each day in court

One of the biggest questions still unanswered is whether Charlie and Donna Adelson, Markel's former in-laws accused of orchestrating and paying for his murder, will ever face prosecution. 

Cappleman declined to discuss it in detail.

"I don’t have any information about any further arrests in the case at this time," she said. 

Case against Magbanua continues 

A new trial date for Magbanua could be set next week when she returns to court for a case management conference.

She is accused of facilitating the payment for the murder that Garcia and his childhood friend Luis Rivera drove from Miami to Tallahassee to carry out.

Rivera, the state’s key witness, confessed to coming to Tallahassee with Garcia to shoot Markel. He pleaded to second-degree murder in exchange for his testimony against Garcia and Magbanua.

The former leader of the North Miami tribe of the Latin Kings gang was sentenced to 19 years, to run at the same time as a 12-year federal sentence for an unrelated racketeering case.

An influx of cash in one year 

During trial, Cappleman worked to show a spike in cash deposits to Magbanua’s bank account, more than $41,000 in the year after Markel’s July 18, 2014 murder. She also showed jurors more than $17,000 in checks from the dentistry practice owned by Wendi Adelson’s father, the Adelson Institute, which investigators say were part of the murder payment.

Cappleman accused Charlie and Donna Adelson of financing the $100,000 hit. Police say the motive was the family’s desperate desire to move Wendi Adelson and her two young boys to South Florida.

Magbanua dated Charlie Adelson at the time of the murder while continuing a sexual relationship with Garcia.

Wiretaps secretly recorded by the FBI were played in court. In them, Magbanua and Charlie Adelson can be heard talking in code following an undercover FBI agent approaching Donna Adelson on the street in Miami and asking for $5,000 in relation to the family’s “problem up north,” referring to Markel’s murder. 

She denied any involvement in the conspiracy to kill the legal scholar during her testimony last week. Despite testifying she didn’t have any personal knowledge of any Adelsons’ involvement in the plot, Magbanua said based on the evidence presented at trial, she thought her former boyfriend was behind Markel’s murder.

'Dan Markel didn’t get a choice'

Markel’s murder was reckless and callous, Cappleman told jurors Tuesday.

He was a doting father of two who was executed in his own garage at the hands of men with greed and hate in their heart and a conviction to carry out the grisly, heinous crime, she said.     

Garcia and Rivera drove for hundreds of miles — twice — in their plot to kill Markel. 

Murder milestone: 5 years after Dan Markel was gunned down, journey to justice continues  

The day he died, they stalked him as he dropped his kids off at daycare then went to the gym. As they trailed him in a rented Toyota Prius, they had the chance to stop. They had the chance to walk away from a murder.

But they didn’t.

“Dan Markel didn’t get a choice in any of this,” Cappleman told jurors. “His death was the product of a cold, calculated act driven purely out of greed.”

Contact Karl Etters at ketters@tallahassee.com or @KarlEtters on Twitter.