A judge is allowing prosecutors to present evidence that a white man charged with fatally stabbing a black student on the University of Maryland’s campus belonged to a racist Facebook group and had racist memes on his cellphone.
Prince George’s County Circuit Court Judge Lawrence Hill Jr. ruled Wednesday after hearing arguments on defense attorneys’ request to not allow the evidence during Sean Urbanski’s trial next month.
Urbanski is charged with first-degree murder and a hate crime in the May 2017 killing of Bowie State University student Richard Collins III. Collins was visiting friends at the University of Maryland when he was fatally stabbed.
Urbanski’s lawyers say the “Alt-Reich: Nation” Facebook page and racist memes that investigators extracted from Urbanski’s cellphone are “particularly offensive,” inflammatory, irrelevant and inadmissible at trial.
