UMD Hate Crime Trial Delayed Again: Report

For the fourth time, a judge has delayed the trial of Sean Urbanski, who is accused of fatally stabbing U.S. Army Lt. Richard Collins III on the College Park campus of the University of Maryland in 2017.

WTOP reports that Prince George’s County Circuit Court Judge Lawrence Hill Jr. granted a request from the defense to delay the trial, meaning it will now begin Dec. 9 rather than later this month.

Urbanski, who is white, is accused of stabbing Collins, who is black, and prosecutors say they have evidence that Urbanski was racist.

Collins, who was a Bowie State University student, was visiting friends on the UMD campus at the time of his death.

The FBI decided there was not enough evidence of a hate crime, even after racist cartoons and posts from a now-deleted white supremacist Facebook group emerged, WTOP reported. However, he still faces a state hate crime charge.

Prosecutors allege that Collins was visiting friends at the university when Urbanski stabbed Collins in an unprovoked attack. Urbanski's affiliation with that Facebook page prompted authorities to charge him with a hate crime, but his lawyers argue that is unfair, and instead put forward the theory that alcohol and substance abuse was possibly to blame.