A white supremacist gang member who served time for manslaughter has been sentenced for the murder of a California man just three months after he was released from prison.
Craig Tanber, 40, was sentenced Friday to 56 years to life in state prison for the 2015 death of Shayan Mazroei at a Laguna Niguel bar, according to the Orange County District Attorney.
Tanber’s sentencing comes over four years after he stabbed Mazroei, a 22-year-old Iranian-American to death following an argument at a Laguna Niguel bar., outside Patsy’s Irish Pub in Laguna Niguel over Labor Day weekend in 2015.
On the day of the incident, Tanber and his girlfriend, Elizabeth Anne Thornburg, 39, got in an argument with Mazroei outside the Original Patsy’s Irish Pub, according to prosecutors.
The fatal confrontation began with an argument between Mazroei and Thornburg.
Prosecutor’s alleged that Thornburg criticized Mazroei’s Middle Eastern heritage, while Tanber’s defense attorney contended that Mazroei was rude to Thornburg when she asked his name to determine how many players were between them on a pool table signup sheet.
The argument continued when the two stepped out to smoke cigarettes, with Thornburg spitting on Mazroei several times, and Mazroei responding by spitting on Thornburg once, at which point she chased him back into the bar.
Witnesses described an enraged Tanber ranting outside for more than five minutes, uttering a series of explicit racial epithets and mentioning having a knife and wanting to stab someone.
When the bouncer walked away to assist a bartender, Tanber opened a door to the bar, pointed at Mazroei and yelled, “You!”, punched Mazroei and stabbed him twice, once through the heart and once in the shoulder.
Tanber was arrested three days later and charged with second-degree murder and convicted in December 2019. Thornburg was charged with one felony count of accessory after the fact.

Craig Matthew Tanber, [right], an admitted white supremacist gang member, sits with his attorney, Alisha Montoro, as he is sentenced to 56 years to life in prison in Orange County Superior Court in Newport Beach on Feb 28

Elizabeth Anne Thornburg, 39, [photo], is awaiting trial after she was charged with being an accessory after the fact to Mazroei’s killing 

Just three months earlier Tanber had been released from prison where he was serving time on a 2007 voluntary manslaughter conviction in the beating death of a 26-year-old man.
In his plea, Tanber admitted to helping kill 26-year-old Cory Lamons, whose body was found April 6, 2004, in the bed of a pick-up truck by Huntington Beach police, court records show. Lamons was beaten to death with a claw hammer for allegedly stealing money from the ex-girlfriend of another white supremacist gang member, according to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.
“Shayan’s parents were robbed of their only son and a lifetime of memories,” Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said in a statement, after sentencing on Friday.
“Craig Tanber is a callous murderer who has repeatedly shown a complete disregard for human life. The sentence handed down…will keep him behind bars for his entire adult life and prevent a cold-blooded killer from harming other innocent people and destroying more lives.”
Thornburg was charged with being an accessory after the fact to Mazroei’s killing and is awaiting trial. She has pled not guilty.
In 2017 Mazroei’s family  was awarded $6 million in damages by jurors in a civil trial that found that Tanber was 90 percent at fault for the fatal stabbing while Mazroei himself was 10 percent at fault.
The jury also determined that Patsy’s Irish Pub was not at fault, following allegations by the family’s attorney that it failed to provide a properly-trained security guard the night of the stabbing.