Lawyers representing the man accused of killing technology executive Bob Lee are attempting to poke holes in the prosecution's case, questioning the motive and the thoroughness of the police investigation in what's likely a long-term strategy to raise enough doubt to exonerate their client at trial.
At a hearing Monday to determine whether there's enough evidence against Nima Momeni to take the case to trial, his lawyer Saam Zangeneh argued that his client wasn't angry with Lee because something "inappropriate" occurred as prosecutors claim, but with another man.
Under questioning from Zangeneh, a San Francisco police investigator said Khazar Momeni, the sister, was given GHB — which had been known as a "date rape drug" — at a party hosted by the other man the afternoon before Lee was killed. That upset Nima Momeni, his lawyer argued.
"Now you're starting to get a different picture — it wasn't that our client had any kind of argument with Bob Lee," Zangeneh said in an interview after the hearing. "The argument was really" with the other man, he said.
Lee was the chief product officer at MobileCoin. He had previously created Cash App and helped develop Google's Android operating system. His murder in April touched off national headlines about the safety of San Francisco and other large cities.
Video evidence shows Lee and Nima Momeni leaving the Millenium Tower apartment of Khazar Momeni shortly before Lee's death. Prosecutors say a kitchen knife with Lee's blood on it, found near the victim, also had DNA evidence on the handle that was traced to Nima Momeni. The knife, they say, came from Khazar Momeni's apartment.
Asked if Momeni's lawyers would have to explain how Lee ended up murdered, Tony Brass, another lawyer for Momeni who was in court Monday, said "there's an explanation" which the defense team will put forward at trial.
Determining if there's sufficient evidence to hold a trial is a low bar that even Momeni's lawyers concede the District Attorney's office is likely to win. Instead, his lawyers are laying the groundwork to show that prosecutors haven't established a premeditated motive for Momeni to murder Lee, a hurdle required to win a conviction for first-degree murder.
"This is very likely to go to trial," Brass said. If Momeni reacted to what happened to his sister with murderous rage, Brass said, it wasn't directed at at Bob Lee.
Earlier on Monday, Momeni's lawyers seized on a revelation that a homeless man was also at the scene of the stabbing.
"I think that the appropriate effort wasn't put in to talking to that person," Zangeneh said at the hearing, referring to the homeless man. "How are we supposed to know what he knew, or what information we can get, because nothing was done."
The case is People of California v. Momeni, CRI-23005500, California Superior Court in the County of San Francisco.
