Search Articles
SAN FRANCISCO (CN) — A civil lawsuit brought by the family of Cash App founder Bob Lee against Nima Momeni and his family will move forward, a San Francisco judge ruled Monday.
San Francisco County Superior Court Judge Harold Kahn overruled a demurrer against the plaintiffs’ claims of aiding and abetting and conspiracy brought by Momeni’s mother, Mahnaz Tayarani, his sister, Khazar, and her husband, Dino Elyassnia.
“There are allegations that liberally construe your three clients knew about Nima’s propensity for violence, knew he was going to go out and harm Mr. Lee, and gave him the means to do so,” the judge said.
Momeni was convicted of second-degree murder in December 2024 for Lee’s slaying after a two-month trial. He has yet to be sentenced and has appealed his conviction under the California Racial Justice Act.
During Momeni’s trial, testimony and camera footage showed Lee and Momeni together the night of Lee’s killing in 2023. Prosecutors said Momeni stabbed Lee in a fit of rage at a secluded spot underneath the Bay Bridge because he believed Lee was doing drugs with Momeni’s sister, Khazar. Momeni’s defense attorneys asserted Momeni acted in self-defense after Lee, on a multiday drug bender, attacked Momeni.
Lee’s family, in the lawsuit filed in San Francisco Superior Court March 2025, asserts negligence and wrongful death claims against Momeni, as well as aiding and abetting and conspiracy claims against Khazar Momeni, her husband and Momeni’s mother. The Lee family, in its complaint, claims Momeni’s family attempted to cover up the crime and was evasive with law enforcement as it conducted its investigation.
In the hearing over the plaintiffs’ second amended complaint, Sheila Mahmoudi, an attorney for Momeni’s family, argued any claimed knowledge Momeni’s family had of his intent to harm Lee does not mean they knew he was going to murder him.
“I don’t believe that knowledge that Nima is angry or would take his rage out constitutes the knowledge the crime was going to occur,” she said.
Kahn agreed to disagree, telling Mahmoudi that, in his view, the plaintiffs clearly claimed the defendants knew Momeni was going to take his rage out; however, he said, whatever the method was “is not critical at this point.”
Kahn added he understood the Momeni family’s position that plaintiffs’ claims are made up and “looking for someone with a deep pocket to answer for an awful event.”
“I understand this is just the beginning. It’s far from over. You’ll be arguing strenuously throughout if your clients didn’t do what they are accused of,” he said.
In addition to the claims against Momeni and his family, Lee’s family brings invasion of privacy claims against the condo complex and the company that controls its security cameras, Securitas Security Services, claiming they released video footage of Lee’s last moments to news outlets without the permission of his family, traumatizing his children when they saw the footage.
The footage depicts Lee staggering down the street toward a call box at the condo complex, leaving a trail of blood, according to the family. He is then seen falling to the ground and getting himself back up before stumbling away and collapsing again in front of the building. Other footage also shows him lying in the street, unresponsive.
“While the public may have already known that Bob Lee had been stabbed and murdered, the video footage did not advance public understanding of those facts. Instead, the footage publicly exposed a private and extremely vulnerable moment that had not been meaningfully witnessed by others at the time it occurred,” Lee’s family says in the complaint.
A judge previously sustained a demurrer brought by Securitas, ruling the plaintiffs failed to claim the surveillance footage of Lee was a public disclosure of private facts. However, the judge granted Lee’s family leave to amend to add claims the footage displayed “pure morbidity and sensationalism without legitimate public interest or law enforcement purpose.”
At Monday’s hearing, Kahn said the plaintiffs’ amended complaint “does just that,” rejecting Securitas’ claim the footage was a public fact because it depicted a public street and did not rise to the level of “pure morbidity.”
“This is alleged to be somebody who is in extraordinary distress and is in the last moments of his life trying to get a last grasp somehow. It is showing a person who is in extreme desperation and anxiety; that is how I read the second amended complaint,” Kahn said. “… This is a claim of the trauma that is imposed upon survivors of the deceased; that to me is pure morbidity and sensationalism without public interest.”
Representatives for the parties did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Lee’s family is seeking general and special damages, as well as damages for Lee’s loss of wages, earning capacity, hospital, medical, professional and incidental expenses suffered, but there is no specific monetary damages amount in the complaint. The Lee family has demanded a jury trial.
Follow @mhattridge_Subscribe to our free newsletters
Our weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.
