Brooklyn Jury Convicts Man In Hate-Crime Killing

BROOKLYN, NY— A Brooklyn jury convicted a 20-year-old man of manslaughter as a hate crime in the fatal stabbing of professional dancer O’Shae Sibley outside a gas station in 2023, while acquitting him of the more serious charge of murder as a hate crime.

Jurors found Dmitriy Popov guilty after a three-week trial in Brooklyn Supreme Court that centered on surveillance video, witness testimony and Popov’s own account from the witness stand.

A judge scheduled sentencing for June 30.

Prosecutors said Sibley and four friends stopped for gas at a Mobil station on Coney Island Avenue in Midwood after spending the day at the Jersey Shore on July 29, 2023.

Shirtless and dressed in bathing suits, they danced to Beyoncé songs while one friend wore what witnesses described as a jockstrap.

According to testimony, a friend of Popov’s saw the group and began shouting, “Get that gay s--- out of here."

“There is no question that hate showed up that night in the gas station,” Assistant District Attorney Sarah Jafari told jurors during closing arguments. “And it is because of that hate that O’Shae Sibley was killed.”

Prosecutors said Popov recorded the encounter on his phone.

After the groups initially separated, he remained outside and continued filming Sibley and his friends.

Two members of a Shomrim volunteer patrol across the street testified they also heard him use a racial slur. Popov denied using any slurs when he took the stand.

The confrontation escalated when Sibley and two friends walked back toward Popov.

Surveillance footage showed the three men unarmed and still wearing bathing suits.

Jafari said Popov pulled out a knife and warned one of the men, “Come on, get stabbed.”

As Popov pointed the knife at Sibley’s friend Devon Washington, Sibley moved toward him, the video showed.

“He was left with no choice but to try to disarm the defendant,” Jafari said. “Any reasonable person in O’Shae’s shoes that was brave enough would do the same thing.”

Prosecutors said Popov then stabbed Sibley in the chest, piercing his heart.

Defense attorney Mark Pollard argued the video supported a claim of self-defense. He urged jurors to evaluate the encounter through the eyes of a frightened teenager. Popov was 17 at the time of the stabbing.

“He lunged, ran toward Dmitriy Popov. That’s the case,” Pollard said.

“I’m going to ask you to see this all happening from his mind as a 17-year-old. Did he correctly perceive danger in those seconds?”

Pollard also noted the physical differences between the groups.

“These are professional dancers, these guys are in shape, and he was a puny little thing,” he said.

The defense argued that Popov reacted in a matter of seconds and could not analyze events the way investigators and jurors later could.

“The video has all the reasonable doubt I think that you need,” Pollard said. “Don’t use hindsight, ladies and gentlemen, because he didn’t have the advantage of it.”

Prosecutors countered that Popov and his friends initiated and escalated the conflict and that Popov was the only person armed with a deadly weapon.

“This is a series of events that he and his friends created and he continued and that led to this,” Jafari told jurors.

“You cannot provoke someone, and then when they stand up for yourself, clutch your pearls and say, ‘Oh my God, I’m so scared, this is self defense!’”

Jurors began deliberating Tuesday afternoon and repeatedly asked the judge to reread instructions on murder as a hate crime, murder and manslaughter as a hate crime before reaching their verdict.