SAN FRANCISCO (CN) — After hearing evidence in a two-day preliminary hearing for Nima Momeni, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Harry Dorfman ruled that Nima Momeni will face trial in the April stabbing death of CashApp founder Bob Lee.
Momeni, 38, a tech consultant from Emeryville, is accused of stabbing and killing Lee in San Francisco’s Rincon Hill neighborhood in the early morning of April 4.
Dorfman cited the evidence presented — photographs of the knife, DNA analysis of the blade and handle of the knife, DNA analysis that ties Momeni and Lee to the knife, and testimony from a medical examiner as key parts of his decision.
“The evidence, as I see it, is very strong,” Dorfman said.
The prosecution rested its case against Momeni in the early afternoon Tuesday, day two of the preliminary hearing, claiming there is more than sufficient evidence to try Momeni in Lee's murder.
Momeni’s defense questioned the accuracy of the video evidence, and implied that Lee and Momeni were friends.
Defense attorney Saam Zangeneh said there was no malice in the case and that he did not believe a reasonable person would stab Lee on a street with so many cameras. He recommended the court make a holding for manslaughter, not murder, and said that Lee’s killing could have been accidental. But Assistant District Attorney Omid Talai said it was “laughable” that Lee was stabbed three times by accident.
“The defense has presented and implied a lot of maybes and theories with no evidence to back it up,” Talai said during his closing remarks. “Maybe the videos were hacked, maybe there was a homeless guy, maybe the knife was contaminated. What I’d like to do is go through the actual facts.”
Those facts were bolstered by Alain Oyafuso, a criminalist with the San Francisco Police Department who testified as an expert in DNA analysis and comparison.
Oyafuso conducted the DNA analysis on the knife handle and blade found in the Caltrans parking lot near where Lee was stabbed.
He compared the knife’s handle to an oral swab taken from Momeni.
“There’s very strong support that Mr. Momeni is a contributor to the DNA results,” Oyafuso said.
Blood on the knife was also compared to Lee and produced a match, Oyafuso said.
“We have facts and not maybes that there is very strong support for the knife, that the defendant is a contributor to the handle,” Talai said.
That knife, Talai said, was the same brand as another knife found in Momeni’s sister Khazar’s Millennium Tower apartment, a key piece of circumstantial evidence. Lee and Momeni were seen on video leaving the lobby of the Millenium Tower and getting into a white BMW shortly before Lee was killed.
“The last person seen with Bob Lee is the defendant, we see that on video” Talai said.
Talai said the knife was found close to where Momeni parked his car and where blood drops from Lee were found.
During cross-examination, defense attorney Zoe Aron asked Oyafuso if he tested Momeni’s clothes from that night or his white BMW for DNA. Oyafuso said he had not.
Dr. Ellen Moffatt, the assistant medical examiner for the city and county of San Francisco, was also called to the stand. She testified that she performed Lee’s autopsy. She said he was stabbed three times; once in the hip and twice in the left chest area. Her testimony provided new details into Lee’s injuries.
One wound penetrated near Lee’s nipple and pierced the right ventricle of Lee’s heart. Moffatt said this was the fatal stab wound.
“He died as a result of multiple stab wounds. The manner of death was homicide,” Moffat said.
Moffatt testified that she could not determine the order of the stab wounds and that there were also scrapes and bruises on Lee, but she could not definitively say they were defensive wounds.
Defense attorney Tony Brass cross-examined Moffatt and asked her if she could determine what kind of knife inflicted the wounds. Moffatt said she knew the wounds were consistent with those that come from a knife, but could not say what kind of knife it was.
Zangeneh argued that Momeni and Lee were friends. Momeni’s name was found on Lee’s cellphone, Zangeneh said, and Lee did not identify Momeni as his attacker when he called 911.
After Lee called 911, he told the dispatcher “somebody stabbed me, he didn’t say Nima stabbed me,” Zangeneh said. Zangeneh suggested the stabbing was carried out by an unknown person who was not caught on cameras near the scene.
During his closing argument, Zangeneh pushed for a manslaughter charge, saying the case did not meet the malice standards to charge Momeni with murder.
Dorfman said a reasonable interpretation of the evidence supported the murder charge.
“A decision was made to kill, and there’s evidence to support it before the crime was done,” Dorfman said.
A sudden quarrel or heat of passion crime would warrant a manslaughter charge, Dorfman said.
Zangeneh was not fazed by Dorfman’s decision, telling reporters outside the courtroom that the preliminary hearing was used as a mechanism to learn about the case, and that he will not reveal his defense strategy before trial.
Asked if the defense would pursue the manslaughter theory in the future, Brass was noncommittal.
“We have a defense, and manslaughter is a step on the road to that defense,” Brass told reporters.
Momeni’s next hearing is Aug. 15, where the case will be assigned to a judge. No date is set for trial.
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