Kidnapped CEO Was Found Slain in the Mountains. His Ex-Employee on Trial Claims He Made Them Do 500 Pushups for Paychecks By Samira Asma-Sadeque

A tech CEO and cannabis entrepreneur who was killed in 2019 allegedly made his employees work grueling hours, chided them for wasting his time and made them do 500 pushups for their paychecks, a jury heard last week from one of his suspected killers, per local reports.

Tushar Atre, 50, was kidnapped from his upscale Santa Cruz County, Calif. home and found murdered on a property in the Santa Cruz Mountains in Oct. 2019, the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement at the time.

Authorities promptly arrested 23-year-old Joshua Camps, 22-year-old Kurtis Charters, 22-year-old Stephen Lindsay and 19-year-old Kaleb Charters in connection with the killing, per the statement.

Kurtis, who is Kaleb’s brother, and Lindsay were convicted earlier this year of first-degree murder in separate trials, KRON 4 and KSBW reported.

As Kaleb’s trial ensued this month, he told the jury that during a brief stint in August 2019, he and Lindsay worked for 10 days from dawn to dusk on Atre’s cannabis farm, per KRON 4 and CBS News. They agreed on a rate of $200 per day, Charters said, according to KRON 4.

Kaleb told the jury on Wednesday, Nov. 5 that on one occasion, he and Lindsay were humiliated by Atre after they briefly lost the keys to one of his cannabis farm’s trucks, the outlet reported. When they eventually located the keys, Atre chided them for wasting his time, Charters said in court, because he claimed his time was worth a lot of money.

Atre, who Charters testified was about to stop their checks, then ordered him and Lindsay to do 500 pushups for $1,400, per the KRON 4 report, which was further cited by SF Gate. The amount was $600 less than the $2,000 the workers were expecting for a 10-day work period, the court heard.

Other witnesses corroborated the information about the push-ups, KRON 4 reported.

According to another witness, who KRON 4 did not name, Atre operated a toxic workspace, prompting an inside joke among his employees about him being robbed.

Atre’s close assistant and confidante Sam Borghese testified last month and gave a similar account, claiming while he and Atre maintained a close and positive relationship, the tech millionaire ran a tight machine and created a hostile work environment, sometimes withholding paychecks from his employees, KRON 4 reported at the time.

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Atre, a New York native, was the founder of a web-design company Atrenet, and had previously survived an accident after a bus ran over him, according to his obituary.

During his time in California, his family said in the obituary, the “free spirit” supported local artists and renovated homes.