A state jury deliberated for less than four hours Friday before finding Dean Victor Matuu guilty of first-degree assault instead of murder for fatally stabbing his cousin last year in the Pacific Palisades home they shared with other relatives.

Matuu, 20, faces a maximum 10-year prison term at sentencing in July.

He testified that he stabbed 36-year-old Frank Kapesi on Jan. 24, 2015, in self-defense after Kapesi attacked him.

Matuu said he was afraid of his cousin because Kapesi had previously threatened him and assaulted other relatives who lived in the house.

He said Kapesi sucker-punched another cousin, breaking his nose and sending him to the hospital.

Matuu said he remembers stabbing Kapesi only once, in the back. He also said he grabbed just one knife from the kitchen in the incident.

Kapesi died from multiple stab wounds to his torso. He had one in his back and three in his chest.

The blade from a steak knife was lodged in one of the chest wounds.

Police also found a second bloody knife in the home.

Deputy Prosecutor Dwight Nadamoto told the jury in closing arguments that it was Matuu who attacked Kapesi and that Matuu did it twice. He said the knife blade broke off in Kapesi’s chest in the first attack.

That was before another cousin who lived in the house intervened and got slammed to the floor by Kapesi.

After that, he said, Matuu went to the kitchen to get another knife and stabbed Kapesi in the back when Kapesi was on top of the other cousin.