San Francisco Woman Posts $35M Bail

A Chinese real estate scion charged with orchestrating the murder of her children’s father was released from a San Francisco Bay Area jail Thursday after posting $35 million bail, a highly unusual financial transaction that startled and angered the victim’s family and friends.

Tiffany Li will remain out of custody after family, friends and her mother’s business associates raised $4 million cash and pledged Bay Area properties worth a combined $62 million to post her bail. Courts require double the bail amount when property is pledged instead of cash.

Li, 31, is charged with directing her boyfriend and another man to kill Keith Green, 27, and dispose of his body, which was found in May with a bullet wound to the neck 80 miles north of the suburban San Francisco mansion he and Li once shared with their two young daughters.

Court records show 15 properties being pledged. Li’s attorney Carr said the properties are owned by family and business associates of Li’s mother, who spends most of her time in China where she profited from real estate investments.

Prosecutors say Li feared she would lose custody of her daughters. Li and the two men were arrested shortly after Green’s body was found and the trio is scheduled to stand trial in September. Li has pleaded not guilty.

A bodyguard ushered Li out of jail and into a waiting Cadillac Escalade Thursday afternoon, three hours after a judge ordered her released. The two men charged in the case remain in jail and haven’t asked for bail to be set because they don’t have the financial backing Li has, Li’s attorney Geoff Carr said.