Middletown murder sentencing delayed until June 23 as co-defendants case continues

A sentencing in the Middletown murder case was adjourned to June 23, leaving the long-running prosecution of Dijion Constantine unresolved in Orange County Court after his planned April 29 hearing did not go forward.

Constantine had been scheduled to be sentenced after pleading guilty in June 2024 to second-degree murder in the killing of Sebastian Avilan-Medina, who was found shot to death inside his Knapp Avenue home in March 2019. But Constantine’s defense attorney told the court the date had been set too early and said sentencing should wait until the related cases against co-defendants are resolved.

The judge agreed to delay the proceeding rather than move ahead while those prosecutions remain open. Constantine testified against two co-defendants, Douglas McFarlane and Sheldon M. Paul, whose cases are still pending.

The postponement matters because the killing remained unsolved for more than five years, even as Middletown police pursued hundreds of leads before arrests were made in 2024. That long investigation, followed by plea negotiations and cooperating testimony, has made the case one of the city’s most closely watched homicide prosecutions.

For Avilan-Medina’s family, the adjournment means the legal aftermath stretches farther into a case that began with a fatal shooting in a Middletown neighborhood and has already passed through years of investigation. The court process has moved from the scene on Knapp Avenue to a plea, then to testimony against other defendants, and now to another delay before sentencing.

The June 23 date puts the next step back on the calendar, but it does not close the file. With McFarlane and Paul still facing prosecution, the case remains active in Orange County court, underscoring how a murder case can stay alive for years after the initial arrest phase ends.