Murder trial of tech consultant in stabbing death of Cash App founder Bob Lee to go to jurors
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- Nima Momeni's defense team had their turn to persuade the jury Tuesday. Defense attorney Saam Zangeneh appealed to jurors common sense making argument after argument to introduce doubt into the government's case.
The most powerful punch coming at the end of his closing arguments as he showed jurors surveillance video of Bob Lee and Bo Mohazabbi outside the private downtown social club The Battery. In that video, Zangeneh suggested you can see Lee allegedly doing drugs off an object that looks to be the same size as the knife, the murder weapon in this case. Adding to the defense's theory that it was Bob Lee who pulled a knife on Nima Momeni and not the other way around. Zangeneh held up a cardboard cut out of a knife demonstrating what it might have looked like to jurors.
RELATED: Defendant Nima Momeni spars with prosecutor over details leading up to Bob Lee's death
Zangeneh hammered to jurors that the government's motive for the stabbing doesn't make sense, that Momeni killed Bob Lee because his friend, Jeremy Boivin allegedly touched Momeni's sister's behind.
Zangeneh also poked holes in SFPD's investigation, for not speaking to an unhoused man near the crime scene, not speaking to the driver of a white vehicle Lee attempted to flag down, not examining the blood splatter at the scene. The defense attorney suggested their theory is more plausible, that Momeni saying something about Lee not spending time with his family seven months after he moved away from his children wasn't an easy pill for Lee to swallow and he got mad.
RELATED: Bob Lee murder trial: Defendant Nima Momeni testifies that he acted in self-defense
During their rebuttal closing argument, prosecutor Omid Talai said that if the object Lee was allegedly doing drugs off of was the knife in question, why wasn't his DNA on the handle? He also reminded jurors that all three character witnesses testified they never saw Bob with a knife, telling jurors Zangeneh is trying to distract them with things that aren't true. Concluding his rebuttal by saying, "Help Bob by following the law and using your common sense. Do not let him get away with it."
Jurors will receive their final instructions Wednesday. After more than six weeks of testimony, an unexpected change at court Tuesday -- a juror was out sick and was replaced by an alternate.
