Jurors saw graphic images in the courtroom Wednesday as the trial of the man accused of killing Cash App founder Bob Lee resumed after two scheduled days off for jurors.
Prosecutors in the murder case against Nima Momeni have charged him with the fatal stabbing of Lee in April last year in San Francisco’s Rincon Hill/East Cut neighborhood. The process has been at a standstill since last week the strike of the clerks of the San Francisco Superior Court on Thursday, the planned half-day of testimony was canceled. Monday and Tuesday of this week were already ‘dark days’ planned in the lawsuit.
Prosecutor Omid Talai questioned SFPD Officer Milad Rashidian on the witness stand as the jury watched his compilation of surveillance footage from the night Lee was fatally stabbed.
Jurors were shown more than an hour of video surveillance footage from before and after the stabbing. Lee could be seen entering the Millenium Tower apartments where Nima’s sister Khazar lives around 12:45 p.m. Just over an hour later, he is seen leaving the building with Momeni.
The pair then get into Momeni’s car before driving down Beale Street, onto Folsom and then onto Main before stopping under the Bay Bridge, where the stabbing took place.
It was the first time jurors saw footage of not only the aftermath of the stabbing, but also the moment prosecutors say the suspect stabbed Lee on a dark street. In the grainy surveillance video recorded by a camera outside an apartment building 100 feet above street level, two figures were visible: one in light clothing identified as Momeni and one in dark clothing identified as Lee.
Gasps were heard in the courtroom as jurors were shown a video of Lee collapsing in the street just after 2:30 a.m. on the morning of April 4, 2023, shortly after being stabbed in the chest.
Even with the low resolution of the video, it was difficult for Lee’s family members to see it.
“It’s very, very difficult to watch. Of course, you can expect it to be extremely difficult to watch,” Lee’s brother, Timothy Oliver Lee, said outside the courtroom. “But I think the video speaks for itself and speaks for itself as to what actually happened that day, and we look forward to seeing justice served.”
Although the physical act of the stabbing in the video was not clearly visible to the courtroom and there was no indication of who was holding the knife, Momeni can be seen walking towards Lee and holding him back against the fence that lines the edge of the site condition. Caltrans parking lot.
That’s the same lot where police officers later found the murder weapon.
“If you take the defense question and interpretation, that Bob Lee was circling near Nima, that could show that Bob Lee was more of an aggressor,” said criminal defense attorney Shannan Dugan, who was present in the courtroom. “If you look at it from the prosecutor’s point of view, Nima Momeni was on her way to Bob Lee. So it is an open question how the stabbing took place.’
Four SFPD officers testified Wednesday, including several who took photos of the inside of the apartments of both Khazar Momeni and her husband Dino.
In each unit, officers found Joseph Joseph knives, the brand that matched the murder weapon.
Momeni’s defense claims their client stabbed Lee multiple times in self-defense.
The jury also saw video footage of Momeni driving his white BMW just before and after the stabbing.
Before the stabbing, Momeni was driving normally, adhering to all traffic rules, with Lee as a passenger in his vehicle. After the stabbing, Momeni is seen running a red light and driving more erratically as he walks across the Bay Bridge back to his apartment in Emeryville.
