– NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J.
After more than a week of listening to witnesses in the murder trial of one of the teenagers allegedly involved in the beating death of Old Bridge resident Divyendu Sinha, jurors are set to begin their deliberations.
Testimony began April 13 with Sinha’s wife, Alka, and her younger son Ravi, 14, describing how four teenagers came upon them as they walked near their home on June 25, 2010. They said the teens punched the father and the two boys in the head then ran back to a car and sped off. Sinha suffered massive cerebral hemorrhaging, according to Dr. Junaid Shaik’s April 20 testimony. Shaikh, Union County deputy medical examiner, performed the autopsy on Sinha, who died June 28, three days after the beating, at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick.
Steven Contreras, 19, who police say was the driver of the getaway car, is the first of five charged in Sinha’s murder to go to trial.
In addition to murder, Contreras and co-defendants Julian Daley, Christian Tinli, Cash Johnson and Christopher Conway are charged with assaulting the Sinha sons and a motorist before the attack on the Sinha family. They are also charged with conspiracy. The four other teens are to be tried in July.
The five teenagers, who were juveniles at the time of the attack, are being tried as adults. Contreras is being tried separately because he implicated the other four in the attack in his statement to police.
Hassan Abdullah, Contreras’ attorney, argued in his opening remarks and tried to prove through his cross-examination of state witnesses that his client threw no punches and was not involved in the attack on Sinha, The Star-Ledger reported.