Donna Adelson Trial — Wendi Adelson’s Former Divorce Attorney Says the Divorce Was “Not Contentious”

Donna Adelson Trial — Wendi Adelson’s Former Divorce Attorney Says
the Divorce Was “Not Contentious”

 
In today’s testimony Kristin Adamson—the family-law attorney who
represented Wendi Adelson during her divorce from Dan Markel—told
jurors the initial divorce proceedings were “not contentious.”
Her account undercuts the notion that the legal split itself was
a nonstop conflagration; instead, Adamson drew a distinction
between a relatively typical divorce process and what came after
it. Under further questioning, she acknowledged that post-divorce
filings by Markel became more personal and hostile, a shift the
state says fed resentment and control battles that ultimately
form the backdrop to this murder conspiracy case.
Why it matters: motive and narrative framing. Prosecutors have
long argued that a bitter custody fight and relocation dispute
set the stage for the homicidal plot that killed Markel in 2014.
If the jury accepts Adamson’s framing—that the core divorce
looked fairly standard while later filings grew heated—it subtly
reshapes where the real friction lived and when it peaked. That
matters for assigning intent and pressure points to the Adelson
family’s decisions in the months leading up to the
murder. 
Adamson also faced questions about parental involvement in
divorce logistics (how often parents attend client meetings, who
shows up in hearings), as the defense tries to downplay the idea
of Donna Adelson meddling in legal strategy—arguing that what
looked like interference may have been normal family presence
during a stressful time. The prosecution, by contrast, wants
jurors to see those same moments as control—a pattern consistent
with its broader theory of a family mobilized to remove Markel as
an obstacle.
For viewers tracking continuity across witnesses, this clip is a
calibration tool: it doesn’t prove or disprove the
murder-for-hire plot, but it helps jurors locate the temperature
of the Adelson–Markel legal conflict on a timeline—cooler during
the divorce itself, hotter in the aftermath. That timeline will
echo through testimony about relocation, custody, wiretaps, and
alleged conspirators, as the court weighs whether Donna Adelson
crossed the line from family advocacy to criminal orchestration.
(Donna Adelson is on trial for first-degree murder, conspiracy,
and solicitation; she has pleaded not guilty.)
#hashtags #DonnaAdelsonTrial #DanMarkel #WendiAdelson
#KristinAdamson #TrueCrime #CustodyBattle #LegalAnalysis
#Courtroom #MurderForHire #Tallahassee

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