SANTA CRUZ, Calif. (KRONA) – Witness testimony continued Monday for one of the four men accused of killing Santa Cruz Tech CEO Tushar Atre.
Two men, Stephen Nicholas “Nick” Lindsay and Curtis Charters, were convicted in murder trials held earlier this year and sentenced to life in prison without parole. Charters’ younger brother, Caleb Charters, was back in the courtroom Monday when prosecutors called investigators to the stand.
Atre was asleep on October 1, 2019, around 3 a.m. when a group of men broke into his Pleasure Point home, dragged him out of bed, and stole thousands of dollars in cash from a safe. Investigators said the group stabbed and kidnapped Atre before shooting him to death and leaving him for dead in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
Immediately after the horrific murder, Atre’s best friend said her first thoughts were: “Who did this? What did they want?”
Atre, 50, was a wealthy tech executive turned cannabis entrepreneur. He founded Interstitial Systems, a cannabis company with a lab on Fern Street in Santa Cruz and a marijuana farm in the mountains. Atre was also the CEO of AtreNet, a website design company.
Caleb Charters was 18 years old when Atre hired him and Lindsay to grow a large field of marijuana on the farm in August of 2019.
Atre also hired Sam Borghese, a 23-year-old UC Santa Cruz graduate, to be his right-hand man to run the new cannabis business, the lawyers said. Borghese testified for hours on the stand about the toxic working relationships between Atre and Interstitial employees.
Borghese answered more than 100 questions shedding light on a possible motive for the murder. He said his boss would often yell at employees, withhold their salaries, and fire them if he felt disrespected.
“He pushed his employees hard,” Borghese said. Borghese testified that the interstitial employees were so disgruntled that they often “joked” about stealing or harming Atrei behind his back.
On cross-examination, defense attorney Thomas “TJ” Brewer asked: “Did Mr. Attree instill fear in his employees? (So) people would work harder for him?” “Yes,” Borghese replied.
Atre often interviewed job applicants inside his oceanfront home in Pleasure Point. Some of his employees believed he kept $1 million in cash at home, according to court documents.
Unlike his co-workers, Borghese said he had a great relationship with his boss and appreciated having a mentor working in business. He said they often hung out and went surfing together.
Borghese said his boss handed him $25,000 before he drove to Humboldt County with Lindsay and Kaleb Charters to buy hundreds of marijuana plants. Assistant District Attorney Michael McKinney asked: “It’s cool that you’re walking around with $25,000 in cash? Did Mr. Lindsay record videos with the money on display?” “Yes,” Borghese replied.
Lindsay and Kaleb Charters worked long shifts, from sunrise to sunset, for about two weeks performing manual labor on the farm. They had a security code to access the farm, but only Borghese had the security code for Atre’s house, Borghese testified.
The jury watched a video recorded by Atre of his employees working on the farm among the rows of green cannabis plants.
After Lindsay and Kaleb Charters were paid by check, “they told me they needed a break, because this was very labor intensive,” Borghese said. After the duo left Santa Cruz, Atrei discovered that the keys to one of the farm’s trucks were missing. “Tushar got really upset. Tushar called the bank and returned the checks,” Borghese testified.
Lindsay and Kaleb returned to Santa Cruz and found the keys at the ranch. Borghese said they met Atre at the cannabis lab and an argument arose over salary. Atrei was angry that his former employees wasted his time. “(He said) Atrei makes thousands of dollars an hour — because he makes millions — so anyone who wastes his time costs money,” Borghese testified.
Borghese said Atrei ordered the duo to perform between 300 and 500 push-ups before receiving new salaries worth $1,400 each. Both Lindsay and Caleb were members of the Army National Guard, but being forced to do hundreds of push-ups to get their paychecks was humiliating, Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Detective Ethan Rumrell testified Monday.
Det. The names Lindsey and Caleb came up early in the homicide investigation as suspects who might have a motive to harm Atre, Rumrell said. “They were humiliated in front of the people doing push-ups,” Romrell testified.
In September of 2019, Lindsay and Caleb called Borghese, asked him for Attri’s home security code, and talked about stealing it, Borghese testified. He said Borghese thought they were joking, so he gave them a fake security code.
Investigators said Lindsey, Caleb and Caleb’s brother recruited their friend Joshua Camps to help them rob Atre because Camps had several weapons.
According to investigators, on October 1, 2019, Caleb drove Camps, his brother, and Lindsey Attree home, dropped them off and drove away.
Surveillance cameras recorded Atrei running for his life on Pleasure Point Drive screaming for help. Surveillance video played in court showed he was arrested and stabbed in the street before three men forced him into a white BMW SUV and kidnapped the victim. Investigators said Caleb waited for the group at the cannabis farm, where Camps shot Atre in the back of the head and left his body.
On Monday, jurors viewed detailed bank account records for Atre, Caleb and Lindsay.
At around 5pm on the day of the murder, Caleb went to a bank and deposited $1,000 in cash into his account, prosecutor Stephen Ryan testified on Monday.
More money was deposited into Lindsay’s account on October 15, 2019. Ryan showed the jury bank records that revealed that in November, Lindsay made several attempts to pay bills and credit card debts using Atre’s bank account information. Ryan testified that Lindsay also attempted to add the Atre account as a payment method to his PayPal account. Caleb deposited another $2,300 in cash in November.
By May 2020, homicide detectives had arrested the four suspects.
Caleb has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, and his defense attorney described the case as a robbery gone wrong.
While Caleb agreed to participate in a robbery, he never planned to be part of a murder, Brewer said during his opening statements earlier in the trial.
“Plan A” was to break into Atre’s house while the tech executive was out of town, steal the money and one of Atre’s cars, and take the money to Caleb at their meeting point at the farm, Brewer said.
After Caleb dropped the trio off and left Pleasure Point, the trio went to “Plan B” by burglarizing the house even though Atrei was home, Brewer said. “They made the decision to change the plan,” the defense attorney confirmed.
“Tushar went on the run,” Brewer shouted. “And at that point, all plans stopped — complete chaos.” “They had a plan A, and a plan B, maybe. They had no plan C at all.”
The prosecutor and defense attorney agreed that Camps pulled the trigger and killed Atre. “Caleb never touched Tushar,” Brewer told jurors.
Caleb’s trial will continue with more witnesses on Tuesday. Camps’ trial has been paused and is scheduled to resume after the jury in Caleb’s case reaches a verdict.