Murder trial’s closing arguments come to end

As Li’s defense attorney, Geoff Carr has argued prosecutors have wrongly directed blame at his client and Bayat, alleging instead that 44-year-old Olivier Adella was more likely to have killed Green. Having called and texted with Green using a burner phone under a fake name in the hours before he disappeared, Adella is believed by Li and Bayat’s defense attorneys to have orchestrated a botched kidnapping that resulted in Green’s death, while Deputy District Attorney Bryan Abanto has alleged Adella was enlisted by the couple to dispose of Green’s body.

In the month since opening statements were delivered Sept. 23, Li and Bayat have watched as members of the social circle that surrounded them more than three years ago have taken the stand as witnesses. Tears were shed in a crowded courtroom Wednesday as Abanto reviewed the events leading up to the discovery of Green’s body off Highway 101 in Sonoma County May 11, 2016, 13 days after he was last seen with Li at the Millbrae Pancake House.

In his closing arguments, Abanto alleged the discovery of Green’s DNA and gunshot residue on a golf bag in the three-car garage at Li’s home are among the pieces of evidence proving Green was shot by Bayat after Li lured him there following their meeting at the Millbrae restaurant. He said gun magazines found at the home with Bayat’s DNA show he armed himself in preparation for shooting and killing Green April 28, 2016, and contended Bayat had a burner phone he used to communicate with Adella the night of the murder to coordinate the disposal of Green’s body. Though the two had dated for six years and had two daughters, Li and Green had broken up in October of 2015 and had been embroiled in a contentious, monthslong custody battle at the time of Green’s disappearance.

Pointing to a text from Li to Bayat telling him Green had made yet another ask for money April 1, 2016, Abanto sought to establish agreement between the two on a plot to murder Green, who he said was an ever-present source of frustration for Li because of his multiple requests for money. He added Green, who Bayat had heard wanted to get back together with Li, was also a threat to the lifestyle Bayat had assumed in Li’s home, having moved into the house at 625 W. Santa Inez Ave. some four months after Green moved out.

Abanto argued the April 1 text containing the words “green light” set into motion a multi-step plan involving making Adella and his wife Uta Bredenstein beholden to Li and Bayat by paying for their rent and taking them out to fancy meals. Abanto added Li set about crafting an alibi for the night of the murder by setting up a meeting to pick up a rent check from a former co-worker living in a building owned by a family member. He said she also obtained Green’s criminal records, which were later discovered in Adella’s apartment, and made statements to the police aimed at throwing them off, such as telling them to look for Green south of the Bay Area.

“We know there’s a plan because once Keith Green goes missing, there’s all these attempts to throw the police off,” he said. “We know there’s a plan because people go out and get burner phones.”

‘Green light’

Carr was joined by John May, Bayat’s defense attorney, in dismissing much of the prosecution’s evidence as circumstantial, arguing it was selectively presented to support an improbable plot to kill Green. He said a phone call Li made to offer support to a friend who had flunked a financial exam as one of her attempts to establish witnesses the night of the murder was misconstrued by prosecutors as an attempt to establish another witness for her alibi, adding it was evidence of their inability to prove she was behind Green’s murder.

Carr argued Li’s text message to Bayat with the words “green light” was not meant to set a murder plot into action but instead conveyed her intention to settle her custody dispute with Green in court, which he said subsequent text messages support. Though he acknowledged the two had a volatile relationship, Carr pointed to amicable texts between Li and Green hours after a fight to show the two also got along, questioning that a request for money from Green would have constituted a motive to kill him. He added Li paid for Green’s first few months of rent after he moved out of her home as well as the initial retainer for Green’s lawyer in their child support litigation.

Both Carr and May raised questions about the investigations of Li’s home and Green’s body, alleging Green’s blood had not been found in the garage and that the discovery of a small particle of gunshot residue found on a golf bag in the garage could not prove a gun had been fired there. Though Abanto had argued Green’s blood got on the running board of Li’s Mercedes and Li and Bayat had the garage floor and car cleaned to cover up the crime, Carr asserted his argument depended on a “magic tarp” that was never recovered and would have prevented Green’s blood from spilling all over Li’s car before his body was transferred to Adella’s vehicle.

Carr also challenged the testimony of a Sonoma County pathologist who had determined Green died of a gunshot wound, noting that a contract pathologist for Alameda County reviewed photos of Green’s body and felt it was too deteriorated by the time it was found to determine a cause of death.

Carr alleged detectives and investigators enlisted by the prosecution were directed to search in specific parts of Li’s home and failed to investigate other possible evidence, such as Adella’s Chrysler 300, that could have led to other conclusions about who was behind Green’s death.

“It is not unfortunately the best way to investigate a homicide,” he said. “Particularly when some of the assumptions … simply turned out to be wrong.”

Evidence?

For his part, May contended the picture prosecutors painted is an attempt to make Bayat and Li look as guilty as possible with as little evidence as possible. He noted the prosecution has presented no witnesses, no statements and no murder weapon proving Bayat had anything to do with Green’s murder. He said testimony Li’s friend Valerie Goodwin gave that she saw Bayat at Li’s home before they went to dinner and when they returned and also heard him in the background of her conversation with Li when she returned home the same night after her last meeting with Green showed his client was at the home the entire night watching Li’s children.

He also disputed prosecutors’ allegation Bayat had a burner phone and was communicating with Adella on it the night of the murder, noting there’s nothing connecting Bayat to the phone Adella was texting and calling that night. Both Carr and May pointed to phone records showing Adella was in communication with two other men, Naveen Shriwastow and Charles Calleja, the night of Green’s murder and in the days leading up to it, and asked jurors to consider the possibility that Adella acted with them and without Li and Bayat’s knowledge to kidnap Green.

Reasonable doubt

Acknowledging prosecutors must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Li and Bayat plotted to kill Green, May asked the jury to consider a scenario in which he was kidnapped by Adella and his associates, who believed him to lead a lavish lifestyle because he went to clubs and posted photos of cash on Instagram. He asked them if the evidence they have seen could reasonably support a theory by which Green struggled with his captors in Adella’s car as it drove toward Calleja’s home in Mendocino County and was strangled before his body was dumped off the side of the highway.

May argued the evidence pointed to Adella as the one who plotted the crime resulting in Green’s death, and noted Bayat’s willingness to help out with Li and Green’s children and for Green to be a part of their lives supports his lack of motive and innocence.

“[Adella] was the mastermind, the planner, the head of the conspiracy, not Bayat, not Li,” he said. “To say Mr. Bayat had anything to do with a conspiracy in this case, you have to take the prosecution’s speculative, speculative leap into what the circumstantial evidence reveals.”

anna@smdailyjournal.com

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