Jurors see video allegedly showing Bob Lee's fatal stabbing as murder trial resumes
Jurors saw graphic images in court Wednesday as the trial for the man accused of murdering Cash App founder Bob Lee resumed after two scheduled days off for jurors.
Prosecutors in the murder trial of Nima Momeni have accused him of the fatal stabbing of Lee in April of last year in San Francisco's Rincon Hill/East Cut neighborhood. The trial has been on hold since last week when the strike by San Francisco Superior Court clerks on Thursday canceled the scheduled half-day of testimony. Monday and Tuesday of this week were already planned "dark days" in the trial.
Prosecutor Omid Talai questioned SFPD Officer Milad Rashidian on the witness stand as the jury watched his compilation of surveillance footage taken 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 at around 12:45 a.m. Just over an hour later, he is seen leaving the building with Momeni.
The pair then get into Momeni's car before they drive down Beale Street, turn onto Folsom then onto Main before stopping beneath the Bay Bridge, which is where the stabbing took place.
It was the first time jurors saw footage of not only the aftermath of the stabbing but of the moment when prosecutors say the defendant 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 audible inside the courtroom as jurors were shown video of Lee collapsing in the street just after 2:30 a.m. the morning of April 4, 2023, in the moments after being stabbed in the chest.
Even with the video's low resolution, it was hard for Lee's family members to see it.
"It's very, very hard to watch. Of course, you can expect that to be extremely hard to watch," said Lee's brother, Timothy Oliver Lee outside the courtroom. "But I think the video speaks for itself and what actually happened that day, and we look forward to justice being done."
While the physical act of the stabbing was not clearly visible to the courtroom in the video and there was no indication of who was holding the knife, Momeni can be seen advancing towards Lee, backing him up to the fence that stands at the perimeter of the Caltrans parking lot.
That is the same lot where police officers later found the murder weapon.
"If you take the defense question and interpretation, that Bob Lee was circling Nima, that could establish Bob Lee was more of the aggressor," said attorney criminal defense attorney Shannan Dugan, who was in the courtroom. "If you take it from the prosecution's position, Nima Momeni was advancing on Bob Lee. So it's an open question of how the stabbing occurred."
Four SFPD officers testified Wednesday, including several who took photos of the inside of both Khazar Momeni and her husband Dino's apartments.
In each unit, officers found Joseph Joseph knives, the brand that matches the murder weapon.
The defense for Momeni is claiming their client stabbed Lee multiple times in self-defense.
The jury also saw video footage showing Momeni driving his white BMW immediately before and after the stabbing.
Before the stabbing, Momeni is seen driving normally, abiding by all traffic laws with Lee as a passenger inside his vehicle. After the stabbing, Momeni is seen running a red light and driving a bit more erratically as he makes his way across the Bay Bridge back to his Emeryville apartment.