The four defendants who pleaded not guilty in the kidnapping and murder of Tushar Atre, a tech entrepreneur who lived in Pleasure Point. (Contributed)
SANTA CRUZ — Jury selection in a 2019 home-invasion robbery, kidnapping and homicide begins this week, with the trial’s opening expected early next year.
Tushar Atre
Tech and cannabis entrepreneur Tushar Atre was kidnapped from his Pleasure Point home in the middle of the night in October 2019. The 50-year-old business owner’s body, fatally wounded by gunshot, was discovered later that morning on property where he farmed marijuana products.
Four young men, including brothers Kurtis and Kaleb Charters, their brother-in-law Stephen Lindsay and friend Joshua Camps, all from Southern California, later were arrested and charged in the case. Lindsay and Kaleb Charters had previously worked with Atre before parting ways.
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After years of legal proceedings, Santa Cruz County Superior Court Judge Stephen Siegel granted defense attorneys’ requests to sever the case into four separate trials, prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Michael McKinney. Some 70 witnesses have been named by the prosecution to potentially be called to the stand in the coming trial, while none have been identified so far by defense co-counsel Marsanne Weese and Jamyrson Pittori.
Lindsay’s case is the first scheduled to go before a jury and is projected by attorneys to extend from six to eight weeks from opening statements.