SANTA CRUZ—Defense attorneys came forward in the Superior Court of Paul Marigold Tuesday to represent the four suspects in the Oct. 1 kidnapping and murder of tech executive and Pleasure Point resident Tushar Atre.
Stephen Lindsay, 22, Kaleb Charters, 19, Kurtis Charters, 22, and Joshua Camps, 23, were assigned public defenders. They did not appear in court, and did not enter a plea. They will be back in court on June 26 for a continued arraignment.
Bail has not been set for any of the suspects, who remain in Santa Cruz County Jail.
On Oct. 1, Atre—founder and CEO of his web marketing firm AtreNet—was kidnapped around 2:30am from his multi-million dollar oceanfront home in Pleasure Point. He was later found shot dead in a BMW SUV on the 24000 block of Soquel San Jose Road, where he owned the property in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
Camps has been charged as the gunman in the case for allegedly using an assault rifle to cause Atre’s death. While he faces 10 charges, the other three suspects each face seven, including kidnapping, carjacking robbery and murder.
“One of these individuals has, as you can tell by the charging documents, a weapons enhancement,” Rosell said. “We are confident these are the people. We are confident in the evidence against these they will be brought to justice. The reading of the charges has been moved to June.” Rosell declined to elaborate further on the case, but said that the evidence supports the charges.
