UPPER MARLBORO, Md. (AP) - A judge must decide if prosecutors can 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 called "Alt-Reich: Nation."
Prince George's County Circuit Court Judge Lawrence Hill Jr. is scheduled to hear arguments Wednesday on defense attorneys' request to exclude evidence of the Facebook page from 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 stabbed to death.
Urbanski's lawyers argue that the Facebook page and material that investigators extracted from their client's cellphone are "particularly offensive," inflammatory, irrelevant and inadmissible at trial.
