A Franklin County judge threw out a man’s murder conviction in a stabbing case involving cryptocurrency, astral projection and a self-defense claim.
Defense attorney Sam Shamansky argued in a December 2023 trial that Robin Sebastian, 34, stabbed 33-year-old Pradeep Anand on Dec. 24, 2021, in a fight for his life, but the jury returned a mixed verdict Shamansky called “wacky.”
A jury found Sebastian guilty of a single count of murder but not guilty of five other counts: two counts of aggravated murder, another murder count, aggravated burglary and possession of criminal tools.
On the defense’s motion, Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Kimberly Cocroft set aside the lone guilty verdict on Thursday and acquitted Sebastian. He will be released after spending more than two years in jail.
It’s rare for a judge to overturn a jury’s verdict, something Shamansky said he has never seen in his nearly 40 years as a criminal defense attorney.
The Franklin County Prosecutor’s office declined to comment to The Dispatch on the case Thursday.
“The jury clearly lost its way,” Shamansky said. “Even going so far as to acquit the guy of possessing the criminal tool that was supposedly used to stab the decedent. … It takes real judicial courage to do the right thing.”
In a special report in January, The Dispatch reported how prevalent self-defense claims are becoming in Franklin County murder trials and how, more than half the time last year, such defendants won acquittal.
This reversal makes the numbers even more lopsided than previously reported. Now, of the 14 defendants who argued at trial they killed to protect themselves or another, nine were acquitted, and just four were found guilty. In one trial, the jury could not reach a verdict.
A Christmas Eve stabbing
The two men were friends before Sebastian stabbed Anand seven times outside Anand’s apartment building on Hedgerow Road on Columbus’ Northwest Side, county prosecutors said during the trial.
A few hours before he died, Anand transferred more than $50,000 worth of cryptocurrency from one account to a new account, and Sebastian had those logins, according to evidence presented at trial.
Shamansky said Anand was mentally unwell, as evidenced by his obsession with astral projection, and this was part of Anand’s scheme. Shamansky alleged that Anand drugged Sebastian, and Sebastian was fighting for his life.
Columbus police failed to test the bottle Sebastian said he drank from, Shamansky pointed out. This was acknowledged as an error in court records filed by the prosecution.
In court filings arguing the jury verdict should stand, county prosecuting attorneys wrote they provided sufficient evidence. The prosecution wrote that Sebastian’s search history shows he searched for dumpster companies and several types of wide open spaces in an “attempt to figure out the best place to discard a body.”
@LairdWrites