A homeless man who said he stabbed another man to death in Hillcrest out of “frustration” following an ongoing dispute was sentenced Monday to 12 years in state prison and ordered to pay $5,300 for the victim’s funeral expenses.

Probation was denied for Richard Kenneth Sherman, 31, who was given the term for killing Manuel Santiago, 25, who was found lying on the sidewalk July 3 in front of the Great Earth Vitamin store next to Ralphs around 2:30 a.m. in the Uptown District shopping center.

San Diego Superior Court Judge David Danielsen gave Sherman credit for 174 days previously spent in jail. Sherman pleaded guilty Oct. 27 to voluntary manslaughter and a murder charge was dismissed.

Santiago had a drink at Rich’s nightclub on University Avenue that night before his fight with Sherman. As patrons left Rich’s, Santiago asked them if they had seen his skateboard, which he had lost that night, according to Sherman’s probation report.

Sherman said Santiago asked him about his missing skateboard, and Sherman said he didn’t know anything about it. But Sherman told police the skateboard question “frustrated” him, and he admitted to stabbing Santiago as a result.

Witnesses in the Aug. 14 preliminary hearing said the two men didn’t get along and they had been seen fighting before.

Sherman, when drunk, was “very in your face,” said one witness.

Sherman was arrested July 9, and confessed to stabbing Sherman once in the chest. “I was drunk. I wasn’t scared, but I was pissed,” he said to police.

“He came running up on me and he’s bringing East Coast to West Coast. You don’t do that. He said he was from Boston. I stabbed him one time, just once,” said Sherman to police. “After I stabbed, he backed off, away from me.”

“I backed away from him, and I couldn’t believe what I had just done,” said Sherman, who was described in the report as breaking down and crying. “He was only 25 years old.”

Sherman told officers he threw the knife away in a canyon. He accompanied officers during a search for the knife, but it could not be located.

Sherman wrote a letter of apology to the victim’s family.