Jury in Nima Momeni trial for Bob Lee's murder resumes deliberations
Jurors in San Francisco have resumed deliberations Monday in the murder trial of Nima Momeni, the man prosecutors accuse of fatally stabbing of Cash App founder Bob Lee last year.
The jury resumed deliberations at 9:30 a.m. Monday morning, the third day of deliberating since first receiving the case last Wednesday.
Momeni has been charged with first-degree murder in the 2023 deadly stabbing of tech executive Lee, which carries a sentence of 26-years-to-life in prison. Jurors are also considering second-degree murder and manslaughter in the case.
The judge told jurors whatever verdict they come must be unanimous.
Momeni is accused of killing Lee in a remote part of San Francisco's East Cut neighborhood on an early morning in April 2023. The prosecution argued Momeni was angry at the tech executive for introducing his sister Khazar Momeni to an alleged drug dealer who fed her drugs and sexually assaulted her.
During the trial, Momeni's lawyers tried to convince jurors their client acted in self-defense when Lee lunged at Momeni with a knife in hand while high on cocaine and ketamine. The defense claimed Lee became erratic and aggressive after Momeni made a "bad joke" at the expense of Lee's family.
Jurors are considering 21 days of sometimes contentious testimony and thousands of pieces of evidence as they weigh the fate of Nima Momeni.
Attorney Shannon Dugan was in the courtroom for the entirety of the trial as an observer. She says the fact that the jury hasn't come to a decision in the two days could be a good sign for the defendant.
"If everybody agrees quickly on the evidence and on the law, they could come back with a verdict of guilty faster, although there's always the exceptions," said Dugan. "But I also think this jury's working really hard to get it right. I think they shoulder a heavy responsibility for both sides, and they're taking their job very seriously."
The start of deliberations last week came a day after attorneys for Momeni wrapped up their closing argument with a surprise video clip they claimed showed Lee doing cocaine outside a private club with the same knife used to kill him hours later.
On Wednesday morning, Lee's ex-wife Krista pushed back on those claims, posing an alternative answer to what her ex-husband may have had in his hand outside the Battery.
"It wasn't a knife he was holding. It was a metal collar stay. It's something Bob's used for years. It's about yay long," Lee said, holding her thumb and forefinger about four or five inches apart. "And I should only hope that in the evidence it will come up."
The possibility that the item in Lee's hand could have been a collar stay is unlikely to come up in the jury's discussions as it was never mentioned inside the courtroom.
