Heiress changed his life then plotted his death – prosecutors
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.
UNPRECEDENTED AMOUNT
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.
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.
AFFAIR
Sometime after they met, Green introduced Li to his friend, and that’s when the trouble began. Li and Kaveh Bayat soon began an affair.
Prosecutors say Li kicked Green out of the mansion in October 2015, closed their joint bank accounts and turned off his phone. Green went to live in the one-bedroom apartment of a family friend. Bayat moved into the mansion.
Green and Li began a legal battle over custody of their young daughters, eventually agreeing Green could gradually retain 50 per cent, starting with unsupervised weekend visits.
The first weekend visit was to take place April 30, 2016, but Green disappeared two days before.