A state Circuit Court jury Friday found Nathaniel Foster guilty of manslaughter for shooting 24-year-old Kioco Melson multiple times in an illegal game room in 2016.

Foster had been charged with second-degree murder, but the jury convicted him of manslaughter based on extreme mental or emotional disturbance.

The manslaughter charge is punishable by up to 20 years in prison, while the murder charge could have led to a life sentence, according to Deputy Prosecutor Kyle Dowd.

Foster, who was 26 at the time of the crime, was also found guilty of carrying or using a firearm in the commission of a separate felony as well as a second weapon charge.

Foster worked with Melson at an illegal game room in McCully, and they came into conflict over money. Foster had sold Melson a car, but Melson made just one payment toward its purchase price and missed subsequent payments, so Foster repossessed it, according to Dowd.

“So on Nov. 23, 2016, they essentially got into an argument over that,” Dowd said. “The defendant had stated there were a number of associates of the victim also present at the game room, so essentially that translated into his extreme mental or emotional disturbance, in terms of feeling threatened by these folks. “

“However, in the video surveillance it is abundantly clear that he fired seven shots into the victim,” Dowd said. “The second shot severed his spine and rendered him paralyzed, and the defendant walked over and shot five more into his torso and essentially executed him.”

Dowd said the case was a difficult one given the fact that both the defendant and the victim worked in an illegal game room, but the prosecutor’s office is pleased that the jury “rendered a verdict without any doubt that the defendant is responsible for the unlawful killing of Kioco Melson.”

Melson’s family declined to comment after the verdict. One relative, who didn’t give her name, said she couldn’t understand why the jury didn’t find Foster guilty of murder.

Foster fled from the game room, and a Honolulu Police Department SWAT team arrested him at his Kalihi apartment three days after the crime.

The trial before acting state Circuit Judge Trish Morikawa lasted four days. The jury deliberated for five hours before rendering its verdict Friday afternoon.

The judge set sentencing for Nov. 7.

“At the time of sentencing, I plan to be there and certainly will ask that the defendant spend the next 20 years of his life in prison,” Dowd said.