Nima Momeni to stand trial for murder of Bob Lee, judge rules
Nima Momeni enters a courtroom. (Gabrielle Lurie / San Francisco Chronicle / Pool)
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(KRON) — Nima Momeni will stand trial for the murder of Bob Lee, a judge ruled on Tuesday in a San Francisco courtroom.
Judge Harry Dorfman said, “A decision was made to kill. Nima Momeni, I am satisfied that the only crime charged, murder, did occur and that you are responsible for it.”
Krista, Lee’s ex wife, clapped once in celebration while sitting in the front row of the courtroom gallery. Krista told reporters outside the courtroom that she has no doubt Momeni killed her ex-husband.
“The evidence, as I see it, is very strong. Mr. Momeni’s DNA is on the handle of the knife. Mr. Lee’s blood is on the blade of the knife,” judge Dorfman said.
The judge’s ruling was based off a two-day preliminary hearing in which prosecutors presented key pieces of evidence. Six San Francisco Police Department officers testified for the hearing.
Testimony was delivered from a patrol officer who found the Cash App founder bleeding from stab wounds at 2:30 a.m. on April 4. Lee had called 911 for himself, staggered along Main and Harrison streets, tried in vain to find help, and collapsed.
The knife that is suspected to have been used in the killing was found in a gated CalTrans parking lot nearby, the patrol officer testified.
Momeni’s defense team said a homeless man named “Napoleon” was at the scene of the crime when police arrived, but “Napoleon” was not taken in for questioning. The patrol officer testified that the homeless man was incoherent, and therefore couldn’t provide any useful information.
Prosecutors did not reveal a motive during the preliminary hearing. In previously filed court documents, the District Attorney’s Office wrote that Momeni confronted Lee over Lee’s relationship with Momeni’s younger sister, Khazar “Tina” Elyassnia. The sister sent a text message to Lee’s cellphone six hours after he was slain. In the text message, she asked if Lee was OK.
Updates from the courtroom
3:40 p.m. — Bob Lee and Nima Momeni were “not bros,” according to Krista Lee
Defense attorney Saam Zangeneh asserted that evidence showed Lee and Momeni were “bros” and friends.
Around 2 a.m., Lee and Momeni are seen on the Millennium Tower’s security cameras getting into Momeni’s white BMW sports car and having an “amicable conversation,” Zangeneh said.
“Mr. Lee has every opportunity at this time to leave Mr. Momeni’s vehicle, which he doesn’t. They leave Millennium Tower at 2:11 and they start driving,” the defense attorney said.
After the BMW parked near the Bay Bridge, and Lee staggered away from the car bleeding, the BMW quickly leaves the scene, surveillance video showed. Zangeneh said, if Momeni intended to murder Lee, why would he let Lee walk away without “finishing the job?” Also, a murderer would not leave the weapon so close to the crime scene. And further, if Lee knew his killer, why didn’t he name Momeni during his 911 call with a dispatcher? the defense attorney stated.
The judge replied that murders are carried out in all sorts of ways. Sometimes the murder weapon is thrown into the San Francisco Bay, and sometimes it’s not, the judge said.
The prosecutor said, “He’s not charged with being a smart murderer. He’s charged with being a murderer. The fact that he was short-sighted, and frankly not smart, doesn’t mean he’s not a murderer. A lot of the smart ones don’t get caught.”
3:22 p.m. — “Zero doubt” Momeni was the killer, said Bob Lee’s ex-wife, Krista Lee
1:20 p.m. — What is “bro-ing out?” Defense questions only one witness
The defense called on Sgt. Brent Dittmer as its only witness. Zangeneh gave a direct examination.
Question from Zangeneh: “Did you receive information about a relationship between my client and Bob Lee as ‘bro-ing out?’ What do you take bro-ing out to mean? Were they getting along?”
Answer from Dittmer: “That’s kind of a hard thing to define.”
Q: “If someone says, ‘hey that’s my bro,’ what does that mean?” Zangeneh added that most people consider “bro-ing out” as two men who are friends.
Assistant District Attorney Omid Talai asked Sgt. Dittmer on cross-examination:
Q: “(Momeni’s) sister, Khazar, refused to be interviewed by you?”
A: “Correct.”
Q: “Did you knock on her door and try to have a conversation with her? Were you wearing a scary uniform, or a suit and tie like you are now?”
A: “I was wearing a suit and tie. She wanted to speak to her lawyer and refused to speak to me about the case.”
Judge Harry Dorfman then asked the prosecutor to give a closing argument for why Momeni should be put on trial for murder.
Talai said:
“The defense presented and implied a lot of maybes and theories, without actual evidence to back it up. Maybe the surveillance videos were hacked. Maybe there was a homeless guy who did this. Maybe the knife was contaminated. Maybe the defendant was mad, threatening, and even said I’ll f**king kill you, but he was an angel and a ‘bro’ with Mr. Lee. Maybe the knife matching a knife brand found in his sister’s residence was a massive coincidence. The last person seen with Bob Lee is the defendant. We see on video, the defendant drives erratically and appears to be fleeing the scene of a homicide. We have facts, and not maybes. A knife was found near the blood drip trail. We have a text message from the defendant’s sister to Bob Lee characterizing Bob Lee as ‘classy,’ and saying that her own brother was actually coming down way too hard on Bob Lee.”
The judge asked, “What was the time of that message?”
Talai said the text was sent to Lee on April 4 at 8:31 a.m., about six hours after Lee was stabbed to death.
The prosecutor paraphrased from the text message stating, “’Just want to make sure you’re doing OK.’ Oh, the irony, the sister is checking to make sure that he is doing OK. The next line explains why she is concerned about Bob Lee. ‘Because I know Nima came down way hard on you.’ It gets better. ‘Thank you for being such a classy man.’ She is implying here that he handled himself well. And her brother came down way hard on him.”
The judge asked, “Was the sister in her apartment between midnight and 2 a.m. on April 4?”
The prosecutor replied, “Great question, judge.”
Judge Dorfman joked, “Thanks,” and people in the courtroom gallery laughed.
Talai said Lee texted Momeni’s sister that he was “heading your way, in the lobby,” just before midnight on April 3. Khazar responded by giving Lee her apartment number. She also texted, “Babe I want to pass out.”
Security cameras at Millenium Tower showed Lee riding in an elevator up to her apartment and leaving in an elevator with Momeni two hours later on April 4.
Talai said, “We have evidence that Mr. Momeni appeared angry and threatened to kill someone else (a suspected drug dealer named Jeremey.) Objectively, if someone says ‘I’m going to f**king kill you, it appears they are an angry volatile person. He was the last person seen with Bob Lee. There’s good video, clear video, showing the (BMW’s driving path in San Francisco).”
The prosecutor admitted the surveillance video of the stabbing is grainy, and it’s impossible to definitively identify the two people in the video.
Talai said, “You see what appears to be two figures. We can’t see clearly, I’m happy to admit that. Then you see the defendant’s car quickly drive away. You see the (victim) walk up the block … and he appears to be injured. He goes to a car (trying to get help). Evidence shows the victim was stabbed three times. It’s laughable that he’s stabbed three times by accident, or that a random homeless person committed this crime. (Momeni) knew his act was dangerous. There is more than enough evidence to show the defendant committed murder.”
1 p.m. — Prosecution calls six witnesses, rests its case
After calling six witnesses over two days, the prosecution rested its case and informed the judge that no additional witnesses would be called.
The six witnesses were:
1. San Francisco Police Department Sgt. Brent Dittmer.
Dittmer was the lead homicide detective in charge of the Bob Lee murder investigation. On Tuesday, Dittmer testified that Lee called 911 for himself to report that “someone” stabbed him, but Lee never named his killer.
On Monday Dittmer testified about who partied with who leading up to Lee’s death. Lee attended several parties on April 2 and April 3. One of the parties that Lee attended was hosted by a suspected drug dealer named Jeremy. Momeni’s sister, Khazar Elyassnia, and her female friend were given a “date rape drug” by Jeremy. The female friend passed out, and when she regained consciousness, she saw Khazar crying and dressed in only a bikini.
The two women didn’t feel safe anymore and called for someone to pick them up. Momeni picked up his sister and brought her back to her apartment in Millenium Tower. On April 3, just before midnight, Lee texted Khazar that he was going to her apartment. Khazar gave him her apartment number, but also texted, “Babe I want to pass out.” Lee still went to the tower and texted, “heading your way, in lobby.”
2. SFPD Officer Milad Rashidian
Rashidian was tasked with finding surveillance cameras that located Momeni and Lee’s whereabouts in the hours before and after the deadly stabbing. Rashidian compiled videos recorded at 13 locations. The videos showed Lee and Momeni leaving Millenium Tower together in the early morning hours of April 4 and driving away in Momeni’s white BMW. Momeni’s sister Khazar Elyassnia lives in the tower.
Not long after they left, a security camera recorded the BMW parking on a dark street near the Bay Bridge. A fatally wounded Lee staggered down a sidewalk looking for help, video showed. He called 911 before he collapsed in the middle of Main Street. Another camera showed the white BMW leaving the crime scene and driving eastbound over the Bay Bridge immediately after Lee was stabbed.
The surveillance video was too grainy and fuzzy to see the stabbing occur.
3. SFPD Officer Rosalyn Check
Officer Check said she investigated a blood stain “drip trail” showing where Lee staggered after he was attacked. The droplets left a “drip trail” along the sidewalks of Harrison and Main streets and led to the exterior front doors of an apartment building at 403 Main Street. Lee used the building’s exterior call box and left blood on the box.
4. SFPD Patrol Officer Cedric Hood
Officer Hood was one of the first officers who responded to the crime scene, at 2:35 a.m. on April 4, 2023, on the 400 block of Main Street in SF’s Rincon Hill neighborhood. Lee was bleeding uncontrollably from the chest and the hip. Hood gave the victim CPR, but Lee never regained consciousness.
5. SFPD crime lab criminalist Alain Oyafuso
The fifth witness called to testify on the witness stand was SFPD crime lab criminalist Alain Oyafuso. Oyafuso is an expert in DNA analysis.
Oyafuso completed a DNA analysis of swabs taken from the alleged murder weapon, a Joseph Joseph brand kitchen knife, from both the handle of the knife and the blade.
He compared DNA on the knife to oral swabs from Momeni’s mouth, as well as DNA from a blood trail left on a sidewalk from Lee.
On Tuesday, prosecutor Omid Talai asked Oyafuso questions to establish DNA evidence.
Q: “Did you make a comparison between the knife’s handle and Nima Momeni’s oral swab?”
A: DNA from the handle and Momeni matched, Oyafuso said.
Q: “What did you find regarding your comparison between the knife’s blade and the blood spots?”
A: “Lee’s DNA matched DNA found on the blade, and not DNA on the handle.”
6. A coroner who conducted Lee’s autopsy.
The autopsy concluded that Lee’s cause of death was stab wounds to the chest, including one to the heart. A toxicology test found multiple “party drugs” in Lee’s system.
