UMD Hate Crime Defendant Wants 'Offensive' Images Barred: Report

BOWIE, MD -- The man accused of stabbing to death a black student visiting the University of Maryland in an alleged hate crime wants a judge to bar evidence linking him to a white supremacist Facebook page, according to a report.

WTOP reports that lawyers for 23-year-old Sean Urbanski, who was charged in the May 20, 2017 murder of Bowie State University student Richard Collins III, told the judge in a motion that they believe Prince George's County prosecutors will try to introduce images and messages from his phone linking him to the now-deleted Alt Reich: Nation Facebook page.

The lawyers, William Brennan and John McKenna, want the images and Facebook page barred from the court because they are "particularly offensive, extremely prejudicial, highly inflammatory, irrelevant, and not otherwise admissable," according to WTOP.

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.

Prosecutors are seeking a life sentence with no change of parole.

UPPER MARLBORO, MD - MAY 26: Mourners pay their respect during a funeral service for 2nd Lt. Richard Collins III, on May 26, 2017 in Upper Marlboro, Maryland. Collins was a Bowie State University student who was stabbed and killed on May 20th on the campus of the University of Maryland. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)