Closing remarks made in heiress trial

Three-and-a-half-year legal drama has been marked by delays

REDWOOD CITY » For the prosecution, the case against Hillsborough real estate heiress Tiffany Li and her boyfriend Kaveh Bayat largely came down to cell phone signals and surveillance images.

In closing arguments in their trial for the murder of Keith Green, prosecutors argued Wednesday 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 overinterpreted 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.

The closing arguments capped a three-and-a-halfyear legal drama that was marked by delays and a cancer diagnosis for Li, who was born in China to a wealthy family. The jury is now tasked with sorting out a case that reached milestones early on, including Li’s bail — at $35 million, one of the highest in U.S. history — after being arrested on charges of murder and conspiracy.

Much of Deputy District Attorney Bryan Abanto’s closing revolved around cell phone data placing Green, the father of Li’s children, at 5,000 square foot mansion the night of April 28, 2016. Green was last seen alive after meeting with Li at the Millbrae Pancake House. Abanto meticulously detailed the movements of cell signals that police linked to Li, Bayat and Adella, who 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 last month after 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.

But as his office had promised, Abanto pushed forward with a murder theory in which Li, looking to end a custody dispute with Green over their two young daughters, 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. During his closing statement, Abanto played a video recorded by Bayat while Green was still considered missing, in which he refers to one of Li and Green’s children as “my daughter.”

“As long as (Green) was alive, he was a threat to Mr. Bayat’s new life,” Abanto said. “He completed his plan. He supplanted Green.”

Abanto also asserted that Li tried to obfuscate the investigation and throw authorities off Green’s trail. His body was found, clad only in socks, two weeks after his disappearance along Highway 101 outside Healdsburg in Sonoma County. He had been shot in the neck.

“They had the motive to

do it, and their phones give them away,” Abanto said.

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. “It’s frankly wrong.”

Carr also told the jury that Li not testifying at trial should not be interpreted as suspicious, but rather as Li exercising her rights of due process.

“You’re wrong if you allow it to influence your decision in this case,” he said.

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.”