In the wake of a yearlong delay of a high-profile murder trial, a key witness who pleaded no contest to being an accessory to the murder earlier this year was released from custody Friday after he spent the equivalent of three years in county jail, the maximum sentence he could receive in his plea deal, according to the San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office.
Already more than two years old, the case against 33-year-old Tiffany Li, a Hillsborough woman charged with conspiring to murder the father of her two daughters, was recently delayed for nearly a year to August of 2019 to give her time to undergo cancer treatment and allow the defense attorney for her co-defendant and boyfriend Kaveh Bayat, 32, to complete work on an unrelated murder trial slated for April, according to prosecutors.
Originally charged with murder alongside Li and Bayat, Burlingame man Olivier Adella, 43, admitted in February he helped cover up the 2016 murder of a Keith Green, a Millbrae man and father of Li’s children, and agreed to testify at the trial of his co-conspirators, then set for September, according to prosecutors.
As a part of the deal, Adella, who has been in custody without bail since his May 2016 arrest, faced a maximum sentence of three years in state prison, which he has since fulfilled by his credit for time served, according to prosecutors.
District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said defendants can be released halfway through their sentences for good behavior, and noted if Adella were to violate the conditions of his plea deal, he could face a murder charge once again.
Expected to shed light on the alleged actions the trio took to murder Green, Adella’s plea deal was seen as a turning point in the case for Wagstaffe, who noted when the deal was struck his testimony could provide direct evidence of how the crime occurred.
Li, the mother of Green’s children, is being charged for his murder alongside Bayat, who is being accused of pulling the trigger of the gun that killed Green. Adella allegedly admitted to being involved in disposing of Green’s body after the murder.
Li was alleged to have a custody dispute at the time of 27-year-old Green’s disappearance April 29, 2016. Almost two weeks after he met up with Li at a Millbrae pancake house the evening he disappeared, Green’s body was discovered near a Sonoma County homeless encampment May 11, according to prosecutors.
Li posted $35 million bail by putting up several Bay Area properties valued at $62 million along with $4 million in cash in April 2017. Bayat was also assigned $35 million bail but remains in custody, according to prosecutors.
Adella is next expected to appear in court for the start of Li and Bayat’s trial Aug. 19, which is also when a judge is slated to set a date for his sentencing, according to prosecutors.
Adella’s defense attorney Dek Ketchum said he was pleased his client has been released.
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