Hillsborough heiress not guilty in death of former partner
Tiffany Li and her boyfriend, Kaveh Bayat, were charged with the murder of Keith Green 2016.
REDWOOD CITY — A jury has found Hillsborough real-estate heiress Tiffany Li not guilty in the murder of her former partner, but will continue to deliberate the verdict of her boyfriend Kaveh Bayat.
The outcome caps a three-and-a-half year legal drama for the Li after she was accused of the murder of Keith Green, the father of her children and her former lover. Green was found dead by a single gunshot wound in 2016.
A packed courtroom reacted to the verdict on Friday, with “quiet tears” flowing from both Li’s and Green’s families, said San Mateo District Attorney Stephen Wagstaffe.
Although jurors found Li not guilty conspiring to murder Green, they returned to debate Bayat’s fate for the same charges.
“Speculation would say there’s a deadlock,” Wagstaffe said.
The case goes back to 2016, when Green went missing after he was last seen meeting with Li at the Millbrae Pancake House on April 28. Nearly two weeks later, Green’s body was found shot through the neck and naked except for a pair of socks along a dirt road in Sonoma County.
Authorities alleged Li, 33, and Bayat, 32, murdered Green because Li feared she would lose a custody battle with Green over their two young daughters.
Delays and a cancer diagnosis complicated the case for Li, who was born in China to a wealthy family. The jury was tasked with sorting out a case that reached milestones early on, including Li’s bail of $35 million, one of the highest in U.S. history.
Closing arguments in October largely came down to cell phone signals and surveillance images. Prosecutors argued that the last cell phone ping from Green’s phone came from Li’s estate. And phone signals also placed Li and Bayat in the house in what they believe were the final moments of Green’s life.
Defense attorneys, however, said that the San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office over-interpreted evidence and presented an “unreasonable” circumstantial case against the pair. They directed blame instead toward Olivier Adella, a former co-defendant, who was supposed to serve as a star prosecution witness but was disqualified on the eve of the trial.
Adella was initially charged in the killing but later reached a plea deal for a charge of accessory to murder in exchange for testimony against the other two.
That plea deal — and what was planned to be Adella’s damning testimony — were quashed abruptly in September when Adella contacted his ex-girlfriend who was a defense witness, violating a court order. Adella had previously told authorities that he helped move Green’s body, after being indebted to Li and Bayat for previous favors.
Still, Abanto pushed forward with a murder theory in which Li, looking to end the custody dispute, conspired with her new boyfriend Bayat to kill Green. Abanto argued that Bayat sought to replace Green and to acquire the lavish lifestyle that came with being with Li.
Geoffrey Carr, the defense attorney for Li, said his client was unjustly suspected as soon as Green disappeared, and that police and prosecutors ignored evidence that challenged their suspicions or exonerated the defendants.
“They reversed the burden of proof,” Carr said in October. “It’s frankly wrong.”
Carr’s closing remarks centered on how the evidence presented at trial, including blood evidence, did not definitively prove that there was a plot to murder Green, but that perhaps it was a kidnapping gone wrong. A kidnapping, he contended, that was orchestrated by Adella and acquaintances and accomplices of his who were not charged.
Outside the courthouse, Carr said that the prosecutors were just trying to distract the jury.
“There seems to be more evidence consistent with a failed kidnapping than murder,” he said, “and they’re just neglecting it.”