Herish Ali Abdullah, 26, had told the court in Munich that he strangled Moshammer, who designed clothes for Hollywood stars including ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER.
Moshammer, 64, had picked up the asylum-seeker in his Rolls Royce at Munich's main rail station in January and reportedly offered him €2,000 ($2,400) for sex at his villa in an exclusive part of the southern city.
Police arrested Abdullah two days later after finding his DNA on an electrical cord apparently used to strangle the designer at his home.
The court heard that the pair had watched a porn film together and engaged in a sexual act before Moshammer was killed.
Abdullah said that there had been a dispute over his payment, but prosecutors said that he had decided to kill the designer so that he could steal items from his home.
Sentencing Abdullah, Judge Manfred Goetzl told him: "You killed maliciously, out of greed and to enable you to carry out theft."
Lawyers for Abdullah said that he would appeal.
Moshammer, a regular on the German talk show and social circuit, was known for his jet-black bouffant coiffure and outrageous dress, and was almost always accompanied by his trademark Yorkshire terrier, Daisy.
Apart from Austrian-born Schwarzenegger, now governor of California, Moshammer had made clothes for celebrities including Spanish tenor Jose Carreras and the Las Vegas-based magicians Siegfried and Roy.
His murder and the trial attracted widespread coverage in the German press.
Having proved evasive at the start of his trial, Abdullah made a full confession on the second day of hearings, saying: "Yes, I wrapped a cord around his throat and pulled it tight."
The eccentric man known affectionately to Germans as "Mosi" and the "Tsar of Fashion", bequeathed his villa to his dog, which is now being cared for the designer's chauffeur.
Around 15,000 people lined the route of the funeral cortege when Moshammer was buried.
Since his death a picture has emerged of a man who donated heavily to the homeless of Munich but who was a regular client of prostitutes.
An auction of Moshammer's jewelry and valuables in Amsterdam in September raised more than €280,000 ($330,000), which was donated to homeless charities that he supported.
The auctioned items included a pair of Cartier earrings worn by his mother that fetched €72,000.
© 2005 Agence France-Presse
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