The prosecution begins closing arguments in the trial into the stabbing death of Cash App founder Bob Lee.
SAN FRANCISCO– Closing arguments began Monday in tech consultant’s 2023 trial stab death of Cash App founder Bob Lee in San Francisco, an event that shocked the entire tech community whose members mourned the loss of an entrepreneur they called charismatic and kind.
San Francisco prosecutors say Nima Momeni stabbed Lee three times after hearing that Lee’s drug-dealing friend inflicted GHB and other drugs on Momeni’s younger sister and sexually assaulted her.
“One person called 911 for help, saying someone had stabbed me,” said Dane Reinstedt, assistant district attorney, adding that the other person never called police or told anyone what had happened that night leading up to the trial.
Defense attorneys say Lee, 43, used cocaine and ketamine for several days, making him agitated and violent, and attacked the defendant with a knife. They said Momeni was forced to use his Krav Maga martial arts skills in the early morning hours of April 4, 2023, after making a ” bad joke ” who upset Lee – and didn’t realize he had stabbed him.
Momeni faces 26 years to life in prison if convicted of murder. He pleaded not guilty.
Reinstedt mocked Momeni’s defense Monday as he presented jurors with evidence from the trial that began Oct. 14.
He said Momeni was furious with Lee for introducing Khazar Momeni, who he was friends with, to a drug dealer who gave him GHB, known as a date rape druga few hours before the stabbing. They say Momeni questioned Lee earlier in the evening about what happened to his sister at the drug dealer’s apartment and sent him text messages saying the two men were creeps and sexual predators.
Then Momeni met Lee at his sister’s apartment, took a paring knife from her kitchen utensils, drove Lee to a secluded area near the Bay Bridge and stabbed him three times, Reinstedt said .
“It was the protective behavior of the accused’s little sister that led to all of this,” he said.
The puncture wounds were clean, sharp and deep, and did not result from any sort of self-defense fight, he said. 99% of the DNA on the handle of the knife belonged to Momeni, the prosecutor said.
The trial was emotionally taxing for both men’s family members. Mahnaz Tayarani, the accused’s mother, sat on one side of the courtroom while Lee’s father, brother and ex-wife sat on the other. The prosecution began its closing argument with a 911 call in which Lee could be heard asking for help several times.
Surveillance videos of Bob fooling around on his last night and autopsy photos of his injuries are difficult to view, said Lee’s brother, Timothy Oliver Lee. He dismissed Momeni’s explanation of events as a fabrication.
“Even though he was under the influence, he was still Bob. He was never aggressive. He was always a teddy bear and always a great guy,” he said.
Surveillance video shows the two men leaving the scene. chic condo from Khazar Momeni around 2 a.m. and got into Momeni’s BMW. Further surveillance then shows them getting out of the car in a secluded part of the city near the Bay Bridge.
Momeni said he stopped his car after hitting a pothole that caused Lee to spill the beer he was holding. Momeni said he then cracked a joke suggesting Lee spend his last night sightseeing around town with his family instead of trying to find a strip club to continue the party.
That’s when Lee suddenly pulled out a knife, Momeni said. He said Lee later walked away, showing no signs of injury.
“I was afraid for my life,” Momeni said in earlier testimony, sometimes disjointed and controversial. “I had to defend myself.”
Lee was found staggering on a deserted street in downtown San Francisco at 2:30 a.m., dripping blood and crying for help. He later died in a hospital.
Jurors were allowed to ask questions and, through San Francisco Superior Court Judge Alexandra Gordon, asked why Momeni did not call the police either after Lee’s stabbing, or after Momeni realized Lee had been stabbed to death.
A knife recovered from where Lee was stabbed showed Momeni’s DNA on the handle, but the defense said the handle should have been tested for Lee’s fingerprints.
Lee’s death stunned the technology community while his fellow executives and engineers wrote tributes to his generosity and genius. He was chief product officer of cryptocurrency platform MobileCoin when he died.
