Donna Adelson Goes on Bitter Rant at Sentencing

What this episode is about

Donna Adelson's sentencing hearing was marked by a lengthy, bitter rant where she displayed a striking lack of remorse, prompting the judge to interrupt her multiple times to clarify the relevance of her remarks to the sentencing process. The proceedings raised questions about potential charges against her spouse, Wendy Adelson, as speculation continues about the ongoing investigation into their involvement in previous criminal activities.

Key takeaways

• When the judge needs to interrupt your rant, it’s a sign you missed the courtroom memo.
• Donna's unsworn statement is like throwing a party after the cops shut it down—uninvited and tone-deaf.
• The real plot twist? Donna's defense strategy hinges on 'Where is the evidence?'—it's almost like asking for WiFi on Mars.
• Character witnesses swore under oath, while Donna opted out—morning coffee or morning cockiness?
• If Wendy's dating a billionaire, should we call it 'love' or 'strategic relocation'? Either way, it’s definitely a plot twist!

Who speaks in this episode?

• Scott (Host) · 23 min speaking
• Donna Adelson (Guest) · 4 min speaking
• Harvey (Guest) · 1 min speaking
• Wendy Adelson (Guest)
• Jeff Lacass (Guest)

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 5:00: Donna Adlesen, Allison Harvey, Wendy Adlesen, Colorado
2. 5:00 – 10:00: Dan Markle, Tallahassee, Allison Harvey
3. 10:00 – 15:00: Jeff Lacass, Wendy Adlesen
4. 15:00 – 20:00: Jeff Lacass, Wendy Adlesen
5. 20:00 – 25:00: Donna Adlesen, Jeff Lacass
6. 25:00 – 29:15: Dan Markle, Allison Harvey, October 18th

Notable quotes from "Donna Adelson Goes on Bitter Rant at Sentencing"

• There's always a comment below it saying lady this is a post office I keep thinking every morning when I click on my little news app that I use that I'm going to see Wendy…

  about Wendy Adlesen · at 1:28

• I heard she's dating a billionaire and living in my home state of Colorado.

  about Colorado · at 2:52

• All right. So, first, well, I guess first we'll talk about Harvey. He spoke first. It's clear the Aden's decided, you know what, she's going to get the same sentence whether we play the game and show remorse and try to be nice to the judge.

  about Allison Harvey · at 4:12

• He wasn't able to be with her and they're taking his life. And it's clear that they thought the judge was very against Donna. And it's clear to me that Harvey wrote his speech…

  about Donna Adlesen · at 5:01

• Imagine Donna listening to Donna talk about how much how great he was and how much they loved him and how big of a loss it is to our family. It's Lady please.

  about Dan Markle · at 5:48

• About how there should have been a change of venue, how there was a decade of negative press against her, leaving no chance to get a fair trial in Tallahassee. and the judge…

  about Tallahassee · at 7:33

• Wendy's boyfriend, they start dating Jeff Lacass, sweet guy, smart guy, comes off as a credible witness. If Wendy does get arrested, I think his testimony is going to be as important as any of the other evidence that they have. And.

  about Jeff Lacass · at 15:41

• But anyway, I'm going to cut it off there. I love you all. One more reminder, on October 18th, I'm going to be doing standup in Westfield, Massachusetts at Hutchkies at the Nook.

  about October 18th · at 27:26

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Donna Adlesen — Person · Primary referenced defendant (sentencing subject) · 3 mentions · first at 0:14
  The episode centers on her sentencing hearing, her unsworn statement, and the host's interpretation of her lack of remorse and alleged role in the murder-for-hire plot.
• Dan Markle — Person · Referenced murder victim (central to case narrative) · 3 mentions · first at 5:32
  His death is the underlying event driving the legal proceedings discussed; Donna references him in her statement and the host discusses the alleged plot surrounding his murder.
• Jeff Lacass — Person · Referenced key witness (Wendy's ex-boyfriend) · 5 mentions · first at 13:56
  Presented as a credible witness whose testimony could be pivotal in any case against Wendy; also provides an anecdote about Charlie that the host uses to characterize the family.
• Wendy Adlesen — Person · Referenced potential future defendant / family member · 3 mentions · first at 1:40
  Discussed as a possible next arrest/charge; the host highlights circumstantial evidence and emphasizes Jeff Lacass's testimony as key evidence against her.
• Allison Harvey — Person · Referenced character witness / spouse (as implied) · 4 mentions · first at 4:14
  He speaks at Donna's sentencing, criticizes the judge and jury as biased, and frames Donna as innocent—setting the tone for the defense family's posture at sentencing.

Places & events

• Tallahassee — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at 7:46
  Mentioned as the location where Donna Adlesen's trial took place, highlighting the legal proceedings and the family's legal troubles.
• Colorado — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at 2:55
  Mentioned as the current residence of Wendy Adlesen, suggesting her possible lifestyle and means to evade legal consequences.
• October 18th — Event · Event · 1 mention · first at 27:30
  Mentioned as the date for a standup comedy show, indicating the host's other professional engagements outside the podcast.

Full transcript with timestamps

0:04 Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Hope you're doing well. So, you probably saw old Donna Aden sentence hearing was yesterday and it went about how you would expect. Donna went on a bitter, remorseless rant. The judge had to interrupt her multiple times. I don't know if I've ever seen that before. The judge interrupted her multiple times to ask her, "What does this have to do with sentencing?" One of the times, the judge said, quote, "Mrs. Adlesen, you certainly can continue. However, the court can take into consideration the utter lack of remorse that you are displaying. Please proceed if you desire to do so." And then Donna sat there for a couple silent seconds looking like an evil hag. And then she just launched right back into the bitter rant. Where is the evidence that before July 14th?

0:58 She did one of the classic public speaking strategies where you keep coming back to to a line like I have a dream. Da da da d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d I have a dream but hers was where is the evidence that where is the evidence the judge has to stop her what does this have to do with sentencing are you just airing out your grievances she did the classic internet meme where anytime someone goes on a a wild rant there's always a comment below it saying lady this is a post office I keep thinking every morning when I click on my little news app that I use that I'm going to see Wendy Adlesen arrested because Donna was arrested exactly one week after Charlie was convicted. And I've always thought they're doing these trials from easiest to convict to hardest. Like it's not going to be easy with Donna. They

1:58 purposely kept her knowing that she was the spouse and going to be a main suspect. They purposely kept her out of the communications, but I still think they can get her and there's enough. Maybe I'll talk about this that at the end of this one, but I pictured Wendy watching Donna's verdict reading on a cell phone and as they read the verdict, guilty. She closes her eyes and one tear rolls down her cheek and then she reaches over and drops the cell phone over the side of the speedboat that she's on. And she nods at a man that's in the driver's seat. And the man nods back and he puts goggles on and then guns the throttle and they zoom off south and disappear in the black bleak ocean.

2:52 I heard she's dating a billionaire and living in my home state of Colorado. Does anyone know if that's true? But if she's dating a billionaire, they definitely have the means to make some sort of move. I don't know if I would sit around and wait for to be arrested. She saw her brother go down and now her mom. It's probably starting to feel very real. Well, let's get into some of this sentence hearing from yesterday. So, all of hilariously, all of the character witnesses that spoke on Donna's behalf had to do sworn statements where you swear what you're saying is true. And then it gets to Donna and the law and her lawyer goes, "Donna would like to give a unsworn statement." And the judge goes, "Unsworn?"

3:43 And the lawyer goes, "Yeah, she does technically have the right to do an unsworned statement." And they look it up and the lawyer was right. And so it's okay. She is going to do an unsworn statement. So you don't want to testify, but you're going to wait until you've been convicted and then you want to do an unsworn statement and air out all of your grievances. Then it's not the best look Donna. All right. So, first, well, I guess first we'll talk about Harvey. He spoke first. It's clear the Aden's decided, you know what, she's going to get the same sentence whether we play the game and show remorse and try to be nice to the judge or if we say what we want to say and use this platform to say how disgusted we are with the whole thing, how biased Harvey took a shot at the bias judge.

4:41 And that's when the judge interrupted him and said, "How what does this have anything to do with character?" But they let him continue. Said the judge was biased. Said the jury was biased. Said that they that Donna is an innocent woman and they're taking her life and it was just their wedding anniversary and he wasn't able to be with her and they're taking his life. And it's clear that they thought the judge was very against Donna. And it's clear to me that Harvey wrote his speech to be at that at the judge saying, "This is how we feel about how you did." And that was Harvey's little speech. And then Donna gets to give her unsworn statement. She starts out with a whole monologue about how Dan Markle was a good man and his death is a loss to all of us in his family.

5:44 Probably enough to make the Markel family puke in their mouth a little bit. Imagine Donna listening to Donna talk about how much how great he was and how much they loved him and how big of a loss it is to our family. It's like, "Lady please." And then she starts talking about the state can't make up their mind who the mastermind was. She says, "In Catherine's trial, they said she was the mastermind. In my son's trial, they said he was the mastermind. And now the biased state is saying I'm the mastermind." And she says, quote, "Without one iota of actual evidence." Where is the evidence?

6:31 That's another one she line she kept using. Where is the evidence? It's It's in the folder, Donna. We We did the whole trial. Everybody saw it. Everybody heard it. Now it's organized in the folder. If you I'm sure you have it. That's that's where the evidence is, Donna. Um, one point Donna says, "It makes you wonder if the jury was sleeping when the star witness when the state star witness said that my phone never went over to Charlie's house that night, the night of the murder. They called it the money drop. They had Where's the evidence?"

7:16 It's like, "Donna, it's not rocket science. You just don't bring your phone. That's about it. I don't think that's the big like, oh my god, moment that she was hoping it would be. Where is the evidence? Where is it? And then she went on and on about how there should have been a change of venue, how there was a decade of negative press against her, leaving no chance to get a fair trial in Tallahassee. and the judge quickly denied their motion for a venue change and the trial had to be in the hot bed of Tallahassee. And then she talked about the biased jury and how one person had background knowledge about something and she was saying, "Why was she allowed to be on my jury?" And like I said a couple times, the judge interrupts her and goes, "What does this have anything to do with sentencing? The utter lack of remorse isn't going to help. This whole rant isn't really what the sentence remarks are for. You can continue, but

8:24 I'm the one that's going to decide your fate, and I'm not happy about this. And he goes, "This is a raising of grievances. What does this have to do with sentencing?" and she just plows forward and she ends with I'm an innocent woman and there was a real just cringe part at the end. She was like Danny is a brilliant was a brilliant legal mind and scholar and he would have been embarrassed to have his name associated with this total lack of justice. And then at the very end she's goes I swear on my life I was not involved. I swear. It's like you just requested to do an unsworn statement. Now you're swearing over and over again on your life that you had nothing to do with it.

9:20 I swear on my life. I always thought people that said, "I swear on my life." It's like, well, that in a way is nothing and you're probably lying. And part of me thinks looking at Donna sitting there going on her bitter rant that maybe in a way she started over the years to believe that she actually had nothing to do with it. Yeah, maybe I knew about it, but it was the hitman and other people planned it. And I think maybe that is because truly looking at the situation for what it was where this thing's buzzing now.

10:03 What's going on? Hello. truly looking at the situation in reality, it might just be too much for her because when her kids years ago when it was either Charlie or Wendy or both of them came to her and said, "Mom, I think what we should do is hire these have Charlie's ex-girlfriend, her baby daddy. They can pull this off. We should kill We should kill Dan and then we'll be home free. It really is the mom's job in that situation to say absolutely not. Are you guys crazy? I totally get what you're coming from, but we we're not doing that. We We'll either definitely get caught or if we don't get caught, we'll spend every waking moment worried that we're going to get caught. It'll ruin all of our lives. It was Donna's job to be the mom, to be the parent, and say, "There's no way we're doing that.

11:09 What we're gonna do is we're going to stop being petty. We're going to stop threatening to convert his kids to Christianity and dressing them up as the Hitler Youth. We're going to stop all of that. We're going to start being as civil as possible. We don't have to like him. We don't have to be friends with him. We can actually even hate him. But we're going to be mature about this and we're going to go through the divorce process and see how it plays out. If we totally change our behavior and don't be petty and act like we're doing, maybe it will end up all right.

11:48 And if it doesn't end up all right, it'll be better than all going to jail for this murder plan. And she didn't do it. And I would guess the reality of you totally let your family down and ruined your family as much as you possibly can might be too much to grasp for old Donna. Think of how do you how do you square with that? Saying I should have been there for my family. My kids came to me with a crazy idea, a bad idea. They're mad. Their emotions are high. I needed to be the mom in that moment and say, "This is totally insane. We're all gonna go to jail forever. How is that better than not an ideal custody situation?

12:40 We can't do it. Trust me, as the mom, as the person that's been around longer, this is a terrible idea." But instead, Charlie and her are sitting in Charlie's hot tub. And Charlie's convincing her it's going to go great. We're going to do it. He's pretending he's the crime boss that he thinks he is. It's going to be perfect, Mom. And Donna, that was the moment that Donna could have either gone, steer your family in the right direction or let your family ruin itself. and she let her family ruin itself. And that has got to be a tough one to go to bed at night knowing it happened. So, I wonder if she can even grasp truly how much she let her whole family down. Be interesting to see or it'd be interesting to know.

13:43 Speaking of Charlie in the hot tub, a story, it's a little bit crude, but a story that I keep thinking about over and over again when I think about this case is Jeff Lacass, the guy that Wendy was dating that they tried to frame. Wendy was really interested. So, when are you going to be headed out of town going right past Dan's place? And they tried to set the murder up so it happened right then. So as the ex-boyfriend heads out of town, it puts his cell phone right when it happened and then him getting out of town. It would have looked really bad. And that's another thing. the Adles.

14:28 All right. It's one thing, Dan, they had this horrible falling out with the kids and it got as ugly as it can get, but to try to frame the exboyfriend that seemed to be nothing but sweet to Wendy, to have no hesitation to say, "Oh, well, if he if somehow he does end up getting pinned on this and goes to jail forever, who cares?" You know, whatever. We're the Adelins. We pulled it off. But Jeff tells a story. He did multiple interrogations. Well, it started as interrogations and then ended up being interviews. But Jeff Lacass, let me open this door. Boiler kicked off.

15:13 He does he did interrogations, but he tells a story about Charlie that I've thought I just keep coming back to. And I almost talked about it on an Aden video I did a long time ago, but it just it's a little bit crude and I thought, you know what, the the episode has enough to talk about. I'll just leave it out. But since then, I just keep thinking about this story and so I'm going to talk about it. So Wendy's boyfriend, they start dating Jeff Lacass, sweet guy, smart guy, comes off as a credible witness. If Wendy does get arrested, I think his testimony is going to be as important as any of the other evidence that they that they have. And so Jeff tells the cops this story that he starts dating Wendy.

16:04 He says something like she has this this sexuality and this charisma that he was really smitten with Wendy. So he starts dating Wendy. He meets Charlie the first time they just met each other. It's at Charlie's house. Charlie goes, "You want to sit in my hot tub?" And already I think if I was started dating someone, I go over to the brother's house and the brother asks, "Do you want to sit in my hot tub with me?" I knowing myself a little bit, I think I would have maybe made up an excuse to not do that. I don't know. just doesn't sound sitting there in the bubbly hot tub with Charlie Adlesen's chest. Hairy chest sitting right there all just hanging out like great. Yeah, nice nice to meet you. But they say yes. They all get in the hot tub. Charlie Jeff had met Charlie I don't know an hour ago.

17:02 They had just met and Charlie So it's first impression. We're definitely in the first impression phase of Jeff and Charlie. And so when people are in that first impression phase, the stories that they decide to tell are interesting because you're you're essentially painting the picture that you want the other person to see about you. And so in this first impression phase of the relationship between Charlie and Wendy's new boyfriend, Charlie decides to tell the story in the hot tub. So you picture the water bubbling, the steam coming up, Charlie's bare chest out in full display, and Charlie tells a story that he's dating a Korean woman.

17:53 They go to a wedding that had all Korean a Korean wedding with all Korean people and that because Charlie says because he's the only white guy there, the Koreans jump him, beat him up, and then he punishes the Korean woman that he was dating that brought him to the Korean wedding that got him jumped by, this is the crude part, by having purposely painful anal sex with her. So, imagine you start dating Wendy. You're really happy. You had this huge crush on her. You think she's totally gorgeous. You can't believe I'm d I'm finally dating Wendy. And then you go meet her brother. You want to sit in the hot tub? Not really, but all right.

18:42 You're sitting in the hot tub. And then he tells the Korean wedding painful anal sex story. is that's a hell of a first impression. And also, I get the feeling it's one of those stories where as you're hearing someone tell it, you're thinking in your head, this didn't happen. This I don't know. I get the feeling what maybe happened is he went to the Korean wedding and someone gave him a dirty look and he then concocted the whole story to I want to and when people I don't know if it's made up. I'm guessing that story didn't happen quite like that. And then you get into the So if someone makes up a story about themselves, you can go you can analyze the story and see and try to make guesses of why would they pick to make up that story about themselves. And after thinking about it for a while, what comes to mind is it seems like Charlie maybe is insecure about only like maybe being a dentist is

19:48 too wholesome for what he pictures himself. He doesn't want to just be the same dentist like his dad. And it's sort of a wholesome profession. I think in a good way. And as as much money as me and my wife has spent at the dentist, I think all the time, I should have been a dentist. Here I am grinding out on YouTube 40,000 views at a time and dentists the amount of money that they make is unbelievable. The like the watch my dentist has and just it's like the amount of money that you can make doing that. It's it's it's a great profession to be and it just doesn't I feel like Charlie doesn't think it's edgy enough or cool enough just to be a dentist. So, he wants to be a dentist with an edge. I'm not just a dentist. I'm an eccentric dentist with an edge. And I got some rough friends.

20:43 And I have some behaviors. I think there was one allegation that Charlie goes down to like South America or something and h and sleeps with underage prostitutes. And I think he likes that about himself. Like I'm the dentist. I'm the bad dentist. But so, but why else would you tell that story at all? Even if it's true, why would you tell that, especially to a first impression guy that's dating your sister? And then also, why would you to be that crude in front of your little sister? I only have an older sister, but if I told a story like that, my older sister who she would jump, she would tell me, "What are you talking about, Scott?" Like, she's she's very much an older sister where if I if I ever if I told a story that didn't seem to be true or that was unacceptably crude to just tell, especially on a first, she would call me out on it. She's was always quick to call me out. I'm like, "That's not." And

21:54 I I didn't have a younger sister, but I'm thinking if I had a younger sister, would I be talking about anal sex with her? No. You got to be keep things. It just shows the relationship between Wendy and Charlie even because Jeff said Wendy was laughing about that. It just is a bizarre family. And that one story really kind of sums up just how bizarre that whole family is with the relationships and it's like be a little respectful. Your b your little sister is here. Can we talk about something else? And just think about being Jeff Lacost. That's the first story you hear an hour after meeting him. You're sitting there in the hot tub. Where do you go from that? Oh, cool man. That sounds awful. Sorry.

22:48 Sorry to hear about that. You sound like a real edgy badass dentist. So, good for you. Cool hot tub. Great house. Yeah. Anyway, I think I got to go. I'm going to grab my towel. Good story though, Wendy. Cool brother. Very awesome. Yeah, I think I got to go though. And now, unless Wendy is arrested, this might be the last Adlesen video or until she does because this is the this is the end of Donna Adlesen. She'll definitely request a new trial and all of that, but I really don't see her getting it. And so, she's history later, Donna. And now we just we'll sit around and see if Wendy is arrested. I would say I don't want to be wrong, but I would say it's happening. And I would say the best evidence against her is shoot I had this written down. The best evidence against her. Where is it? I don't know. The best evidence against her I think is Jeff Lacass's testimony.

24:06 get him up there telling that whole story. Once again, he comes off as a credible witness. He doesn't come off as kooky or biased, smart guy. And so, you definitely have Jeff Lacass testify and you have the hired hitman testify because there's something with the schedule where the first time they drove down to do to kill Dan, it didn't happen. And then they were trying to plan the next one and then maybe can't remember like the day moved or something and they asked the hired hitman so who switched up that schedule and they said Wendy and also Catherine. So you got to have him testify. You got to have Catherine.

24:43 She testified that Wendy or I mean I'm sorry Donna are the ones that signed all of her checks. And Donna doesn't seem like the type that would just give someone a bunch of money for no reason. Charlie could have easily signed those checks. And there's the story where Donna washed the money. And oh, there the the main one. Oh, yeah. So, I think a really strong circumstantial evidence for Wendy's trial is the day that Dan was murdered. Donna or Wendy's home with the planned alibi of the TV repair man. And then after the TV repair man, she goes to the liquor store because she said she was invited to a stock the bar party. She went and bought bullet um whiskey and on the way there she got to the street where her ex-husband lived and the she knew he had the kids that day and it's police taped off and there's a cop there blocking it and she didn't reach out to her ex-husband to say is everything

26:02 okay? I I drove by and there's like murder tape wrapped around the whole street. Is everything everything cool? I'm just just checking. It would have it'd be for any parent that didn't plan to murder the ex-husband. It would be almost impossible to go on with the rest of your day after seeing that. I'm sure everything's fine, but why was it police taped off? You know what? I'm just going to text and just make sure everything's okay. I'm going to call. And the fact that she didn't, I think, is is strong evidence against her. Will she, if she's arrested, will she beat the case? It's possible. I do think that they started easiest to convict, the hardest, and now they are into the hard. I think Wendy and Harvey will be the hardest to convict. But why not try?

26:56 Why not try? She Wendy deserves to at least be arrested and it would probably take a year for the trial to start and then they got to go for it. You I don't think the state should attach their ego to this might we might not get a conviction. You got to just go for it. Don't try to do any funny business. Just state the facts and if they if it doesn't work out well, you tried. And that's what I think they should do. But anyway, I'm going to cut it off there. I love you all. One more reminder, on October 18th, I'm going to be doing standup in Westfield, Massachusetts at Hutchkies at the Nook.

27:37 There's tickets at their website. Also did a post on the post section with the ticket link. But I love you all. See you soon. Hopefully see you at the standup gig October 18th. Why sting? Bye. Sh. Oh, yeah. One other thing, too, is not only did Wendy during her bitter, remorseless rant do a extended lie cry, but she also did a dry cry. A dry lie cry, if you will. No tears. She was pretending to be crying for I think probably a full five minutes and not one single tear. She She had the face and the tone of crying, but it not one tear. So I do owe a honk of the horn of the lie cry for her. You know, kind of funny too, at the very end here, I got an email from a guy saying the fact that I got rid of the lie cry was so disappointing and it was a part of the show. And I get it, but it's like, dude, it's the Lie Cry horn is bolted to my desk up in the living room and now there's a baby. We had a baby

28:57 and a mother-in-law watching the baby. So, I'm down here in the basement next to the boiler. Okay, chill out a little bit. It's the lie cry horn will honk again. All right, love you all.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Donna Adelson Goes on Bitter Rant at Sentencing"?

Scott (Host), Donna Adelson (Guest), Harvey (Guest), Wendy Adelson (Guest), Jeff Lacass (Guest).

What is "Donna Adelson Goes on Bitter Rant at Sentencing" about?

Donna Adelson's sentencing hearing was marked by a lengthy, bitter rant where she displayed a striking lack of remorse, prompting the judge to interrupt her multiple times to clarify the relevance of her remarks to the sentencing process. The proceedings raised questions about potential charges against her spouse, Wendy Adelson, as speculation continues about the ongoing investigation into their…

What is mentioned in this TRUE CRIME Loser episode?

8 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Donna Adlesen, Dan Markle, Jeff Lacass, Wendy Adlesen, Tallahassee, Allison Harvey. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Donna Adelson Goes on Bitter Rant at Sentencing"?

The episode runs 29 min; the transcript is about 4,434 words in 32 timestamped sections.

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