Defendant charged with killing gay NYC dancer denies hate crime motive at trial

A New York man who killed a gay dancer voguing outside a gas station claimed in court he acted in self-defense.Dmitriy Popov also denied hurling racist and anti-gay slurs before fatally stabbing O’Shae Sibley, a key factor in prosecutors charging him with second-degree murder as a hate crime.“I was scared that I was going to get hurt,” Popov testified in trial, according to The New York Times.The stabbing was captured on video at a Brooklyn gas station. That’s where Sibley and a group of friends stopped after a day at the beach in 2023, when Popov, who was 17 at the time, showed up with a group of friends and got into an altercation. Surveillance video showed Sibley dancing to Beyoncé’s Renaissance album shortly before the incident.According to police, Popov and his friends hurled slurs at Sibley’s group. While Sibley initially tried to de-escalate the situation, the confrontation escalated again. Investigators said Popov then pulled out a knife and stabbed Sibley in the heart, according to reporting by ABC affiliate WABC at the time of the arrest.Related: Brooklyn Dancer O'Shae Sibley Fatally Stabbed for Voguing at Gas Station Three years later, Popov faces trial after being charged as an adult. But while he admitted in open court to stabbing Sibley, he denied key portions of law enforcement’s narrative. He testified in New York Supreme Court for hours in his own defense, a rare move for any criminal defendant. There, he said, a friend of his hurled antigay slurs, but he did not approve of the language and, in fact, said he was entertained by Sibley and his friends dancing in the parking lot.He said he had pulled out his phone to record Otis Pena, a friend of Sibley and a dancer. “At first, it was funny to me, a guy was dancing with his butt out,” Popov said.Popov said he later threw his phone away, so the footage he recorded was not available.But Popov claimed Sibley and his friends then surrounded the teen’s group, and he felt overwhelmed. Po