SAN DIEGO -- A martial arts expert who surprised his ex-wife's lover at the victim's Del Cerro home, then fatally stabbed him five times, including once in the genitals, was sentenced Monday to 26 years to life in state prison.

Bilji Varghese, 31, was convicted Feb. 17 of first-degree murder in the Nov. 11, 2004, slaying of Dr. Haval Ravin, a fertility doctor and divorced father of three.

Before handing down the sentence, Superior Court Judge Michael Wellington rejected a defense request to reduce the conviction to voluntary manslaughter under a "heat of passion" theory.

Deputy District Attorney David Hendren said Varghese scoured the Internet in the months leading up to the murder, looking for information on Ravin and his ex-wife Vilia, as well as adultery, revenge and a type of Japanese sword martial art.

"This was a revenge killing," the prosecutor told the judge. "This was planned."

The victim had an on-again, off-again dating relationship with Vilia Varghese over the course of two years, witnesses testified at the trial.

Ravin's then 17-year-old son, Rizgar, testified that he returned home about 2 a.m. on Nov. 12, 2004, to find blood smeared along steps leading to his father's residence.

The son said he noticed a silhouette of a person through a window near the front door and noticed the front porch light flickering on and off.

The defendant's blood was found on a wall near a light switch inside the home.

Varghese had an injury to his right hand, pressure injuries to his fingertips, a bruise on his left palm, a cut above his left wrist, scratches on his right forearm and redness on the back of his neck when detectives photographed him days after the murder, Hendren said.

A friend of Ravin's, Deputy District Attorney Lucy Weismantel, told the judge she knew right away that Varghese was the one who killed Ravin because of how much he hated the victim.

She said Ravin, as a fertility doctor, "helped hundreds of families" conceive and bring children into the world.

"He was everything that Bilji was not or will ever be," Weismantel said.

She told Varghese that his selfishness took Ravin from his family and friends.

"And for what? For an honor killing?" Weismantel asked the defendant. "There's no honor in that."

She told Varghese that he was lucky prosecutors didn't charge special circumstances that would have made him eligible for the death penalty.

"You are a coward, and that's how you will be remembered," Weismantel told the defendant. "May the rest of your life be filled with memories of hate, guilt and confinement."

During the trial, Hendren said Varghese was upset because Vilia had signed the couple's final divorce papers nine days before the murder.

The defendant never thought authorities would seize his computer and access his Internet searches and e-mails, the prosecutor said.

Defense attorney Daniel T. Williams maintained that his client had been searching the Web for information on what would happen to his autistic 5-year- old son once the divorce became final.

The defense pointed the finger at Vilia Varghese, claiming she was wearing a dress shoe that belonged to her husband the night of the murder.

The Paulo Mondo shoe, which was covered in the victim's blood and had the defendant's sperm in it, was found underneath foliage beyond a fence behind Ravin's home, Hendren said.

Williams contended that Vilia Varghese -- who did not testify -- became obsessed with Ravin and was worried he would find out that she had been cheating on him.

Hendren called the defense theory "ridiculous."

Homicide detective said the killer probably had help committing the murder because Ravin's body was carried to the garage on a ladder after he was killed near the front door.

Officers smelled a strong odor of bleach and noticed swirl marks in the entryway of the home, indicating an effort to clean up, according to trial testimony.

When detectives went to the defendant's Normal Heights home 30 hours after Ravin's body was discovered, they noticed a strong odor of bleach coming from Varghese, Hendren said.

The defendant was a black belt in a form of Japanese sword fighting called Bato Do and knew the points on the body to inflict fatal injury, the prosecutor said.

The stab wound to the genitals sent the message that "this was payback," the prosecutor said during his closing argument.

"For months he studied my brother's habits," Alan Ravin told the judge. "He viciously killed Haval and tried to clean up afterward."

Alan Ravin's wife, Anna, said in a letter that Varghese was consumed by hatred and rage and "lost his mind over jealousy."

"He decided that the only way he (the defendant) could be at peace was by killing Haval," she wrote.