SAN FRANCISCO – A highly controversial video was shown in court Monday in which prosecutors say Nima Momeni reenacted the stabbing death of Bob Lee.
Before the trial, prosecutors said they obtained video of an SFPD surveillance effort after the stabbing but before Momeni was arrested, which was taken from the parking lot of Momeni’s former attorney.
Momeni is accused of it Lee was fatally stabbed in April last year in San Francisco’s Rincon Hill/East Cut neighborhood.
The video shows Momeni in a black cap and shirt talking to a private investigator outside the law office in Burlingame. He appears to be talking to the investigator when he makes three movements that an SFPD officer said were stabbing gestures. Momeni then appears to make a throwing gesture that appears to be consistent with surveillance footage showing Momeni throwing the knife over a nearby fence shortly after the stabbing.
SFPD Sergeant David Goff, who shot the video, testified that he saw Momeni and the investigator in “an intense conversation with Momeni doing most of the talking.”
“Six minutes into the video I saw Momeni make three distinct stabbing movements to the left torso of [the investigator]Goff testified. “They were different, and they went from low to medium to high. On the third part I could see his right hand and I noticed that his palm was facing down and the top of his hand was facing up. It looked like he was holding a sharp weapon or some sort of weapon as he made these movements.
But the video was somewhat unclear. The photo was taken from an unmarked police car about 30 feet away. The view of Momeni’s right arm was partially obscured by a nearby light pole and there was no audio to confirm the context of the movements.
Before the trial, Momeni’s attorneys argued that the video should not be played during the trial, citing attorney-client privilege. Despite their appeal, a judge decided it could be shown as evidence because officers had a warrant for surveillance and ruled that Momeni’s mouth had to be blurred to prevent jurors from trying to read his lips.
At a pre-trial hearing, prosecutors said: “Goff’s video recording of the defendant on April 10, 2023 is highly relevant to questions of the defendant’s guilt and demonstrates that the defendant had intimate knowledge of Mr. Lee.”
Prosecutors said in their opening statement about the video: “Sergeant Goff is learning and what you will learn in this trial is that yes, he is a murderer, the evidence will show that it is not smart.” They told the jury “you wouldn’t believe the video,” adding that the suspect “is videotaped talking to an investigator and reenacting the stabbing. He doesn’t do ten stabs, he doesn’t do two stabs, he does three .”
But despite being heralded in the prosecution’s opening statement as a crucial piece of evidence, the video left some with more questions than answers.
Attorney Shannan Dugan, who attended the trial, said the video “is not the smoking gun, it is not the definitive piece of evidence, but it may match the prosecutor’s version of the case, perhaps somewhat.”
“I think the prosecution may have overpromised in their opening statement what this video would show,” Dugan explained. “And today didn’t match that.”
Bradford Cohen, one of Momeni’s attorneys, told CBS News Bay Area that “this piece of evidence hurt them more than it helped them because they made a promise, they made a promise to the jury and that promise was that you would see this. ” but I think everyone who was in the room when they saw that video, it wasn’t what they promised.”
