SAN FRANCISCO (CN) — Prosecutors for the city of San Francisco laid out new evidence in its case against Nima Momeni, a tech consultant accused of killing CashApp founder Bob Lee, in a preliminary hearing Monday morning.
Lee was fatally stabbed and found bleeding on a deserted street In San Francisco in the early hours of April 4.
Assistant District Attorney Omid Talai introduced photo evidence of the crime scene and a knife that is suspected of being the murder weapon, as well as surveillance video showing the movements of Lee and Momeni before Lee’s death. The knife, a four-inch Joseph Joseph brand kitchen knife, is part of a set that Momeni’s sister Khazar had in her kitchen, according to the prosecutor.
Momeni, 38, of Emeryville, California, could spend the rest of his life in prison if convicted of murder. His defense attorneys Monday argued that the evidence against him was flimsy
During cross-examination, Momeni’s new defense lawyers Saam Zangadeh and Bradford Cohen sought to discredit the police investigation of Lee’s death. They said the suspected murder weapon found in a locked Caltrans parking lot close to where Lee was found was not tested for fingerprints, and that a possible witness was only briefly questioned.
“We want to know why police work wasn't as complete as it could have been," defense attorney Tony Brass told reporters outside of the courtroom.
San Francisco crime scene investigator Rosalyn Check said she responded to the scene the morning of April 4 and collected evidence, including the knife. The blade was swabbed for DNA evidence, but the rubber handle was not tested for the presence of fingerprints because Check did not want to taint the DNA sample.
“When you want to see if someone’s touching something, you do fingerprint analysis, right? And they weren’t done on the handle, which is the most important, relevant portion of who, if any, was handling that item,” Zangeneh said to reporters during a court recess.
But under cross examination from Momeni’s attorney, Saam Zangeneh, Check said it is very rare to get a fingerprint from a rubber knife handle. She testified that she’s tested hundreds of knives and and does not remember any that came back positive for prints. She added that it's “almost impossible” to get fingerprints off of rubber.
Zangeneh asked Check if blood was found inside of Momeni’s BMW, but Check replied that she was not involved in checking the vehicle, explaining that it was done by a different team.
Momeni’s defense team has not yet put forth their client's version of events.
San Francisco police officer Cedric Hood, the first responder to crime scene, also testified Monday. Hood said he found Lee uncontrollably bleeding from his waist and hip in the Rincon Hill neighborhood. He rendered aid to Lee and then accompanied him to the hospital, where he later died.
Hood testified that another officer on the scene told him that there was an homeless man sleeping about 40 feet from the crime scene behind some garbage cans, but that man was incoherent when interviewed by police.
Momeni’s defense team wanted to know why that possible witness was not questioned more thoroughly.
"What we’re doing right now is setting the scene,” defense attorney Tony Brass said during a break in the hearing. “We do wonder why some people weren’t questioned."
Prosecutors says Momeni stabbed Lee because of an argument about Momeni’s sister, Khazar Elyassnia. The night of the murder, security footage captured Momeni and Lee walking off an elevator into the lobby of the Millennium Tower, where Elyassnia lived with her husband. Other security footage later showed an assailant lunging at Lee and then stopping at a fence near where the knife was found.
San Francisco police officer Milad Rashidian testified that he retrieved video from 13 locations during the investigation and edited a compilation showing the movements of Lee, Momeni, and Momeni’s car.
At the end of the compilation, a person presumed to be Momeni leaves the Millenium Tower with Lee and gets into a white BMW. Later, the car is shown to have parked on Main Street at a location under the Bay Bridge.
Cohen said the video footage was not conclusive.
“You were zooming in, zooming out, speeding things up," Cohen said to Rashidian about the compilation. "When you zoomed in on this, it actually doesn't enhance it whatsoever," Cohen said of the footage of the two people below the Bay Bridge.
San Francisco Police Department Sergeant Brett Dittmer, a homicide inspector, testified that he found a phone on Lee’s body on which he found correspondence between Lee and Elyassnia.
The preliminary hearing is set to continue Tuesday morning. At its conclusion, Superior Court Judge Harry Dorfman will rule whether the evidence is strong enough to send Momeni to trial. He is currently being held without bail.
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