Highly disputed video shown in court during Bob Lee murder trial
SAN FRANCISCO – A highly disputed video was presented as evidence in court Monday that prosecutors said showed Nima Momeni re-enacting the stabbing of Bob Lee.
Ahead of the trial, prosecutors said they obtained video from an SFPD surveillance effort after the stabbing, but before Momeni was arrested. The video was taken from the parking lot of Momeni's former defense attorney.
Momeni is accused of fatally stabbing Lee in April of last year in San Francisco's Rincon Hill/East Cut neighborhood.
The video shows Momeni in a black cap and shirt talking with a private investigator outside of the law offices in Burlingame. He appears to be in conversation with the investigator when he makes three motions that an SFPD officer said were stabbing gestures. Momeni appears to then make a throwing gesture that appears to be in line with surveillance footage that showed Momeni tossing the knife over a nearby fence moments after the stabbing.
SFPD Sergeant David Goff, who took the video, testified that he saw Momeni and the investigator in "intense conversation where Momeni was doing majority of the talking."
"Six minutes into the video, I saw Momeni make three distinct stabbing motions to the left torso of [the investigator]," Goff testified. "They were distinct, and they elevated from low to medium to high. The third movement, I was able to see his right hand and I noticed his palm was facing down and the top of his hand was facing up. It looked like he was holding an edged weapon or weapon of some sort while he was making these motions."
But the video was somewhat inconclusive. It was taken from inside an unmarked police car from about 30 feet away. The view of Momeni's right arm was partially obstructed by a nearby light pole and there was no audio confirming the context of the motions.
Ahead of the trial, defense attorneys for Momeni argued that the video should not be allowed to play during the trial citing attorney-client privilege. Despite their appeals, a judge determined it could be showed as evidence because officers had a warrant for the surveillance and ruled that Momeni's mouth should be blurred to prevent jurors from attempting to read his lips.
In a pre-trial filing, prosecutors said, "Goff's video recording of the Defendant on April 10th, 2023 is highly relevant to questions of the defendant's guilt and shows that the Defendant had intimate knowledge of Mr. Lee's injuries."
Prosecutors in their opening statement said of the video that "Sergeant Goff learns and what you'll learn in this trial is that yes, he's a murderer, the evidence will show not a smart one." They told the jury "you wouldn't believe the video," adding the defendant is "video taped 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 billed as a pivotal piece of evidence in the prosecution's opening statement, the video left some with more questions than answers.
Attorney Shannan Dugan who sat in on the trial said the video is "not the smoking gun, it's not the definitive piece of evidence, but can it match up to the DA's version of the case, arguably somewhat."
"I think the prosecution did perhaps overpromise in their opening statement what this video was going to show," Dugan explained. "And it didn't match up to that today."
Bradford Cohen, one of Momeni's defense lawyers, also discounted the impact the clip would have.
"This piece of evidence hurt them more than it helped them," Cohen told told CBS News Bay Area. "Because they made a promise. They made a promise to the jury and that promise was, 'You're going to see this.' But I think everyone that was in the room, when they saw that video, it wasn't what they promised."