Left inset: Joshua Camps (Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office). Right inset: Tushar Atre (Santa Cruz Sentinel/obituary). Background: Surveillance footage showing Tushar Atre's killers entering his California home (KSBW/YouTube).
A California man has been convicted of murder and other charges for the brutal killing of a marijuana and tech entrepreneur who created a hostile and torturous work environment that included forcing the man's friends to do pushups for paychecks.
Joshua Camps, 29, was found guilty of first-degree murder, kidnapping, and burglary Wednesday for the 2019 slaying of Santa Cruz tech CEO Tushar Atre, according to local CW affiliate KRON. Prosecutors said he helped three others slaughter Atre after two of them were forced by the marijuana boss to do the pushups.
"They were humiliated in front of people," said Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Detective Ethan Rumrill about Kaleb Charters and Stephen Lindsay, who worked for Atre at a cannabis farm, while testifying during Charters' trial in October 2025, according to KRON.
Sam Borghese, another worker who was employed by Atre, took the stand and accused Atre of being a boss who "pushed his employees very hard."
"Did Mr. Atre invoke fear in his employees? (So) people would work harder for him?" Charters' defense attorney, Thomas Brewer, asked Borghese during his trial.
"Yes," Borghese replied.
Charters, who was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison, recruited Camps and his own brother, Kurtis Charters, to take part in a planned robbery of $1 million at Atre's home. Things went wrong, though, after Atre managed to escape, according to prosecutors.
"Camps … started stabbing him over, and over, and over," a prosecutor explained during Kaleb Charters' trial, while showing jurors photos of an SUV with Atre's blood smeared all over it. "Kurtis grabbed [Atre] and threw him in this car."
The men drove Atre to a Santa Cruz cannabis property to finish him off, with Lindsay yelling at him during the drive. "Why are you so mean to people?" Lindsay shouted, according to a confession that police say Camps gave after his arrest.
According to KRON, employees came forward and accused Atre of creating a toxic work environment to the point where staffers often "joked" behind his back about robbing or hurting him before Atre's murder. They said he yelled at workers repeatedly, withheld and bounced their paychecks, and fired employees if he felt disrespected by them.
Prosecutors said the four men killed the multimillionaire CEO at the very same location where the work abuse unfolded.
"It's fitting where they chose to take him to," Santa Cruz County Assistant District Attorney Michael McKinney told jurors during closing arguments of Kaleb Charters' trial, according to the Los Gatan newspaper, in reference to his marijuana farm.
Kaleb Charters, a former U.S. Army National Guard member, testified during his trial about Atre's paycheck ultimatum.
"You guys are in the Army. Do 500 pushups," Kaleb Charters recounted Atre telling him and Lindsay, another former National Guard member, according to KRON.
Kaleb Charters claimed that he and Lindsay — who was also convicted of first-degree murder, along with Kurtis Charters — had lost keys to a farm vehicle nicknamed the "Monster Truck" and Atre was livid. This was just two months before the Santa Cruz-based boss was kidnapped, robbed, stabbed and shot to death, according to prosecutors.
"Tushar was flipping out," Kaleb Charters testified, noting how he and Lindsay had just planted hundreds of cannabis plants in the Santa Cruz Mountains, allegedly working 10 days straight from dawn until dusk for $200 a day. "He was going to cancel the checks."
Video of the alleged confession that Camps gave to police after his arrest was played in court during Kaleb Charters' trial, in which he described how the group allegedly murdered Atre.
"We zip-tied his hands, shoved a sock in his mouth," Camps said. "I told him no one wants to hurt you, we are just here for your stuff. He kept saying, 'Who are you guys?' He didn't know what was going on. … He was covered in blood. He was saying, 'Please let me go.'"
Camps allegedly admitted to stabbing Atre in the neck after he tried to escape. He confessed to shooting him with an AR-15 rifle several times in the jaw and the back of the head afterward to put him out of his misery, according to police.
"He wasn't going to last much longer," Camps said. "I knew he was going to die."
Lindsay and Kurtis Charters were both sentenced to life in prison without parole, along with Kaleb Charters. Camps is due to be sentenced on March 19.
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