A white supremacist gang member was sentenced to 56 years to life in prison for stabbing a man to death in California just three months after being released from prison, the Orange County District Attorney’s Office said.
Craig Matthew Tanber, 40, of Los Alamitos, was convicted in December of one felony count of second-degree murder in the death of Shayan Mazroei and one count of the personal use of a weapon, the district attorney said in a statement Friday.
“Shayan’s parents were robbed of their only son and a lifetime of memories,” said Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer.
“The sentence handed down … will keep (Tanber) behind bars for his entire adult life and prevent a cold-blooded killer from harming other innocent people and destroying more lives.”
In September 2015, Tanber’s girlfriend exchanged words with Mazroei when the two went outside a Laguna Niguel bar to smoke. Witnesses said the woman hurled racial slurs at Mazroei.
Video showed the woman spitting on Mazroei several times and then chasing him back into the bar, the release said.
A bouncer asked Tanber and his girlfriend to leave the bar. Video footage showed Tanber returning to the bar, where he punched Mazroei and stabbed him twice, first through the heart and then in the shoulder.
Mazroei was taken to the hospital where he later died. Tanber fled but was arrested three days later at a motel.
He had been released from prison three months earlier after pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter in 2007 and admitting to helping kill a 26-year-old man, who was beaten to death after stealing money from the former girlfriend of another white supremacist gang member, the statement said.
