Verdict in Bob Lee’s murder trial: Jury makes decision on suspect Nima Momeni, who stabbed the Cash App founder

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — A jury in San Francisco has returned a verdict in the high-profile murder trial of a technology consultant charged in the stabbing death of Cash App founder Bob Lee.

The verdict will be read out in court on Tuesday at 9:30 a.m

TIMELINE: Events leading up to the fatal stabbing of Bob Lee are detailed in court documents

Prosecutors argued Momeni targeted Lee because he believed his sister Khazar Momeni had been drugged and sexually abused by Jeremy Boivin, a man Lee had introduced to her.

Defense attorneys argued that it was Lee who, in a drug-induced rage, pointed a knife at Momeni after Momeni made a bad joke that questioned Lee’s priorities as a father. On the witness stand, Momeni testified that he told Lee, “If it was my last night in town, I would be hanging out with my family, not going around strip clubs.”

In their opening statements in October, the prosecution played Lee’s 911 call for the jury, in which he pleaded for help 47 times. Lee’s family said in court throughout much of the trial that it was the first time they had voluntarily heard the call.

Testimony throughout the trial was contradictory depending on who was on the witness stand.

MORE: Defendant Nima Momeni says he acted in self-defense

SFPD Officer Rosalyn Check was a crime scene investigator who testified early in the trial that she did not examine the murder weapon knife for fingerprints because of its rubber handle, only for DNA. Something the defense lawyers had drummed into the jury’s mind called the police investigation into question.

Lee’s friend Bo Mohazzabi, who was with Lee hours before his murder, testified that Lee received a call from Nima Momeni in which Momeni questioned him about what had happened to his sister earlier that night. Mohazzabi also testified that Lee consumed alcohol and drugs that night and that he behaved as usual.

One of the most anticipated witnesses was Khazar Momeni, who testified that Jeremy Boivin gave her GHB (the date drug) and grabbed her butt. Lee and Mohazzabi had also been with Boivin but left. Momeni testified that Mohazzabi made her uncomfortable. As they were leaving, their friend Aranza Villegas arrived. Villegas, a defense witness, testified that Khazar Momeni acted dramatically that evening. Khazar Momeni testified that she had known Lee for about eight years when they met at the private social club The Battery. She also described Nima as her close and protective older brother. In text messages to her brother shown in court, she said no one touched her. But on the stand, she said she was using a lot of substances at the time and sometimes had difficulty recognizing when someone was hurting her because of her upbringing, which included abuse from her father.

Boivin did not testify during the trial but was on the defense’s witness list. Momeni’s defense attorneys told reporters that Boivin had an open drug case and that he wanted immunity to testify, which defense attorneys could not guarantee. In an email to ABC7 News reporter Melanie Woodrow, Boivin’s attorney Valery Nechay called Khazar Momeni’s account false and said she had a voluntary sexual relationship with Boivin.

On the witness stand, Nima Momeni testified that his sister had an open marriage with her husband, the well-known plastic surgeon Dino Elyassnia. Momeni said the couple had rules that they respected, but when Elyassnia found Momeni in her marital bed with Boivin, he was angry, especially after Nima rescued Momeni and Elyassnia Khazar from Boivin’s apartment the night before after she called them , to say that she was drugged and didn’t know what country she was in.

RELATED: Whippits, bowl of drugs: Bob Lee’s friend takes the stand and describes what he saw on the night of the murder

SFPD Sergeant Goff testified that he was assigned to monitor Nima Momeni after the murder of Bob Lee. This included monitoring Momeni’s conversation with a private investigator outside his former lawyer’s office. In it, prosecutors said Momeni was seen making three different stabbing movements that mirrored Lee’s three stab wounds. But during his testimony, Momeni told jurors that he wasn’t demonstrating what he was doing, but rather that Bob Lee didn’t and came at him with the knife after he made that bad joke that called Lee’s priorities as a father into question.

The forensic pathologist Dr. Ellen Moffatt testified that Lee’s cause of death was multiple stab wounds and the manner of death was murder.

SFPD Sergeant Dittmer testified that Dr. Elyassnia googled “how to erase an iPhone” days after Lee’s murder. He also deleted the search results. SFPD never saw what was on Khazar Momeni’s phones because the software they used couldn’t get their passwords.

Nima Momeni’s defense lawyers argued in their argument that the prosecution’s evidence surrounding the knife was insufficient, questioning both the chain of evidence and the DNA evidence that showed 99% of Momeni’s DNA was on the handle of the knife. The attempt to cause a mistrial was rejected by the judge. Momeni’s lawyers filed a motion pointing out that Dittmer had revealed to the jury in his testimony that Momeni had never received bail, thereby confusing the jury.

Momeni’s defense team called Greg Hampikian, a DNA expert who testified about the possibility of false inclusion or exclusion in DNA testing. He admitted on the cross that he had been paid $12,000 for his testimony, plus travel expenses and a hotel stay.

MORE: Accused murderer’s sister describes Bob Lee as ‘aggressive’ and high on drugs under cross-examination

Dr. John Marraccini testified about the drugs in Bob Lee’s system, including cocaine and ketamine. He also testified that the knife wound on his hip could have been due to the person carrying the knife pointing the knife at him.

In his testimony, Nima Momeni described hanging out with Lee at his sister’s house after he rescued her from Boivin’s apartment. He said Lee assured him that Boivin was a good guy. At Khazar’s request, Lee and Momeni left their apartment. Surveillance video showed her in an elevator in the Millennium Tower. They got into Momeni’s vehicle and he said they were wondering where to go, the bars were closed and the strip clubs had stopped serving alcohol. Momeni said that Lee spilled a drink in his car and that Momeni stopped so Lee could clean it up. He says Lee found his sister’s whippets under the seat and started hitting them and making noises. Momeni said Lee got out of the car and he followed him. Then Momeni said he made that bad joke and Lee pointed a knife at him. He said Lee walked away and didn’t make any noise that suggested he had been stabbed. Momeni picked up the knife and threw it over the Caltrans fence, where investigators later found it. The Joseph Joseph knife was the same brand of knife found in Khazar Momeni’s apartment.

During cross-examination, Momeni told prosecutors that when he learned of Bob Lee’s death, he thought it was possible that he had been stabbed and killed with a knife by someone else that night after the interaction. Momeni was asked why he parked his car at his mother’s house after Lee’s murder. He said the window was broken before, which was repaired, but was broken, so he parked it at his mother’s house.

Next on the stand was SFPD Sergeant Steven Pomatto, who also testified and demonstrated how Momeni may have redirected the knife. Under cross-examination, prosecutors asked Pomatto that he lied about being a Navy SEAL in order to join a special group within the SFPD. He said it was a misunderstanding.

Prosecutors called three rebuttal witnesses who testified that Bob was a teddy bear who loved hugs and often defused tense situations. They said they had never seen him with a knife.

During closing arguments, Momeni’s defense team showed jurors a video of Lee before the battery with Mohazzabi, in which they said it looked like Lee was allegedly taking drugs with a knife. Defense attorneys suggested to the jury that this was the murder weapon and that Lee, not Momeni, brought the knife. Prosecutors reiterated that Lee’s DNA was not on the knife’s handle.