reporter Blaise Gomez posted on X<\/a>. \u201cToday, he appeared to give me the finger as I took court-approved photos.\u201d<\/p>\nProsecutors said McFarlane was paid the hefty bounty by accused cohort Sheldon Paul in March 2019 because Paul believed that Avilan-Medina had burglarized his home, the outlet reported.<\/p>\n
The case remained cold for five years, before cops arrested McFarlane and two others \u2014 Paul and Dijion Constantine \u2014 in 2024 and charged them in the deadly plot.<\/p>\n
Constantine, who was paid with marijuana for his role in the contract killing, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in June and is due to be sentenced next month.<\/p>\n
A photo shows Sebastian Avilan-Medina, who was shot at his Knapp Avenue home in March 2019. News12<\/p>\n
Douglas McFarlane, who is on trial for allegedly gunning down Avilan-Medina in a murder-for-hire plot. News12<\/p>\n
Paul\u2019s first trial ended in a mistrial in April, but he was convicted of second-degree murder at his second trial earlier this month and faces a sentence of up to 25 years to life when he is sentenced in January.<\/p>\n
McFarlane\u2019s trial went to the jury Wednesday after closing arguments, with prosecutors citing phone records, surveillance footage and Constantine\u2019s testimony from his guilty plea.<\/p>\n
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Defense attorneys for McFarlane have cited a lack of DNA evidence, calling the DA\u2019s case circumstantial.<\/p>\n
The trial has been particularly difficult for Avilan-Medina\u2019s family.<\/p>\n
Dijion D. Constantine, 23, of the Bronx, was charged with the March 11, 2019, murder of Sebastian Avilan-Medina, 26, of Middletown. Middletown Police Department<\/p>\n
Sheldon Paul faces up to 25 years to life in prison after being convicted of two counts of murder in the second degree for the 2019 slaying. Middletown Police Department<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a roller coaster of emotions,\u201d the victim\u2019s father, Bryan Avilan, told News12. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to go through all that happened to our son.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said it has been particularly challenging to shield Avilan-Medina\u2019s son, who was just one when his dad was gunned down, from details of the tragic slaying.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard to bring this home and trying to hide it because we don\u2019t want him to know yet what happened to daddy,\u201d Avilan said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He\u2019s a little camera shy. An upstate New York thug charged in a grisly murder-for-hire plot got ticked…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":379111,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[300,57,238,9,11,10,779,4721,817,58],"class_list":["post-379110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-cameras","tag-metro","tag-murders","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-orange-county","tag-trials","tag-upstate-new-york","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379110\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}