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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