Prosecutors: Heiress changed man’s life then planned his death
HILLSBOROUGH, Calif. — Keith Green was a popular but troubled Northern California high school football star who had recently washed out of college when he met Tiffany Li.
Li was a pretty, jet-setting daughter of a rich and powerful Chinese family who was born in Beijing and grew up in Silicon Valley.
She changed his life. Then, according to prosecutors, she orchestrated his murder last year when she fell in love with another man after more than six years with Green.
That man, his “bodyguard” and Li have all been charged with first-degree murder. The men are jailed pending a September trial.
Li, however, called on her wealthy family and friends to post $4 million in cash and put up more than $60 million in Northern California real estate to secure bail and set her free before trial. The district attorney called the amount unprecedented in the region.
Her release on bail shocked Green’s family and friends and underscored just how wealthy and influential her family is.
Li’s attorney Geoff Carr says she had nothing to do with the murder and that’s why her family and friends took the financial risk they did to post her bail. Li and the two men have pleaded not guilty.
Court records show her mother and stepfather amassed a fortune through real estate investments and construction projects in China, including two Beijing skyscrapers. The documents show the family has properties in the Cayman Islands and St. Kitts, Caribbean island nations known for their lush beaches and strict financial privacy laws.
The couple’s story began around 2009. Li and Green met when he was 21 and she was 23 and quickly decided to live together. They first moved into an apartment owned by her mother, who disapprovingly told homicide detectives that Green grew marijuana in one of the bedrooms.
They soon moved into a newly built $7 million mansion in the exclusive San Francisco suburb of Hillsborough owned by her mother. Li gave birth to a daughter in 2012 and to a second daughter two years later, and the home was staffed with nannies, housekeepers and landscapers. The couple had their pick of exotic sports cars and SUVs to drive.
He liked tattoos. She talked about plastic surgery, according to court records.
Li held a master’s degree in business from the University of San Francisco, and her mother paid her $100,000 a year to help manage the family’s real estate holdings. Green had trouble finding work after convictions for theft and fraud as a minor, court records show.
Li’s mother told police she disapproved of Green because he drank and smoked marijuana, and he lost a construction job. She called him a “black hole” in the family.
Still, she picked up the $40,000 annual tab for Green to attend Cordon Bleu Culinary School in San Francisco.
Those who knew him previously remember someone different.
Green grew up in a bluecollar neighborhood in San Mateo, a high-tech, San Francisco Bay Area enclave. His parents divorced when he was young, and he was raised by his mother, family friend Angela Dunn said.
He ran into legal troubles, including a fraud case involving Macy’s gift cards, when he was a juvenile, according to court records.
Nonetheless, he was a popular high school athlete, and he had many friends when he died.
Dunn said about 50 people attended an April 28 vigil marking the one-year anniversary of his death.