Karmelo Anthony’s family has launched a fresh crowdfunding push to bankroll the convicted teen’s appeal.
The new GiveSendGo campaign is targeting $250,000 after a Collin County judge rejected the 19-year-old’s bid for a new trial last month, family spokesperson Dominique Alexander told reporters on Wednesday. Donors had already chipped in roughly $27,000 by the time of the announcement.
“We understand that the pursuit of justice through the appellate system requires tremendous resources. This is why the legal fund has been established,” Alexander said.
The fundraising effort comes with the appeals process potentially stretching well into next year, and far longer still if a new trial is ultimately granted, Anthony’s legal team warned. His co-counsel Sean Daredia painted the original proceedings as fundamentally compromised.
“So much evidence came out. That evidence showed not only this family but the entire world that he did not receive a fair trial,” Daredia told reporters on Wednesday.
That evidence, Daredia’s team argued, had been sealed away through a last-minute handshake agreement between prosecutors and Anthony’s original defense attorneys. Under the deal, the prosecution kept Anthony’s history of violent and threatening text messages from jurors. His ex-girlfriend’s report that he had been stalking her shortly before the fatal stabbing was also withheld.
In exchange, the defense agreed to silence any mention of Austin Metcalf’s own criminal record. Metcalf, 17, had allegedly joined two others in spray-painting racist graffiti.
The eleventh-hour squabbling over that arrangement reportedly prevented Anthony from taking the stand, a move his new attorneys contend torpedoed his case.
Anthony’s father, Andrew Anthony, stepped to the microphone during Wednesday’s press event to acknowledge the supporters who have rallied behind his son.
“We want to thank everybody, from the internet family to our personal family,” Andrew Anthony said.
He called them “angels around here.”
The family’s gratitude comes after an earlier GiveSendGo fundraiser pulled in more than $600,000, only to be removed the day after Anthony’s June conviction. That money covered pre-trial legal costs and family relocation over the past year, according to a statement from the organization.
Anthony drew a 35-year prison sentence for fatally stabbing Metcalf at a high school track meet in Frisco in 2025. The killing of the 17-year-old rocked the North Texas community and ignited fierce online debate over self-defense claims, racial dynamics, and courtroom fairness.
His new legal team continues to press forward despite the judge’s denial of a new trial.
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