TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (CBS12) \u2014 The 75-year-old matriarch of a wealthy South Florida family was sentenced to life in prison Monday for masterminding the murder-for-hire of her former son-in-law, Florida State University law professor Daniel Markel.<\/p>\n
According to CNN, Donna Adelson was convicted of first-degree murder, conspiracy, and solicitation in a case that exposed deep family rifts and a deadly custody dispute. Prosecutors said she orchestrated the 2014 killing to keep her daughter and grandchildren close, describing her as the \u201cdriving force\u201d behind the plot.<\/p>\n
During her sentencing in a Tallahassee courtroom, Adelson, 75, maintained her innocence, calling the trial a \u201cmiscarriage of justice\u201d and claiming she was convicted \u201cwithout evidence.\u201d Circuit Judge Stephen Everett interrupted her statement multiple times, citing her \u201cutter lack of remorse.\u201d<\/p>\n
See also: Florida man convicted of killing 2 women whose bodies were found in a pond to be executed<\/a><\/p>\n The judge handed down a life sentence without parole for the murder charge, plus 30 years for conspiracy and solicitation, to be served consecutively. Adelson is the fifth person sentenced in connection with the killing. Her son, Charles Adelson, is already serving a life sentence. Wendi Adelson has not been charged and denies involvement.<\/p>\n This case has drawn national attention for more than a decade, exposing a tangled web of family conflict, privilege, and tragedy.<\/p>\n Find more ways to stay up to date with your latest local news. Sign up for our newsletter<\/a> to get the day’s top headlines delivered right to your inbox. Subscribe to our YouTube channel <\/a>for the biggest stories and can’t miss video.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (CBS12) \u2014 The 75-year-old matriarch of a wealthy South Florida family was sentenced to life in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2825,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3362,3364,1141,236,3363,28,30,29,3361,1939],"class_list":{"0":"post-2824","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-conspiracy","9":"tag-custody-dispute","10":"tag-daniel-markel","11":"tag-donna-adelson","12":"tag-family-rifts","13":"tag-florida","14":"tag-florida-headlines","15":"tag-florida-news","16":"tag-life-sentence","17":"tag-murder-for-hire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}