Money App founder Bob Lee gave the impression to be snorting cocaine off a knife blade simply hours earlier than he was stabbed to demise, explosive footage revealed for the primary time by his accused killer’s protection throughout their closing statements confirmed.
“That’s the knife,” Nima Momeni’s protection lawyer Saam Zangeneh instructed jurors in a San Francisco courtroom Tuesday as footage taken simply hours earlier than Lee, 43, was stabbed to demise on April 3, 2023, was performed, Mission Native reported.
The footage confirmed Lee standing together with his good friend Bo Mohazzabi outdoors a membership the place they’d been ingesting that night time. Each then bent over and appeared to snort one thing off a pointed, shining object Lee held in his hand. Lee then dug with the thing in what gave the impression to be a small bag and lifted it to his nostril.
“Look at the dimensions. Look at the size. What else could that be?” Zangeneh requested jurors, elevating a cutout of the three.5-inch blade that matched the knife Lee was killed with.
“As long as we have a reasonable theory, you have to find him not guilty,” the lawyer stated. “Unless they could show that our theory is not reasonable, then he’s not guilty.”
The footage might upend prosecutors’ argument that Momeni was the one who introduced a knife alongside when he and Lee drove off collectively later that fateful night time.
Separate footage of the pair leaving the house of Momeni’s sister Khazar Elyassnia, 38, earlier than the stabbing has been central to the case, and prosecutors argued that it confirmed Lee had no blade on him earlier than the stabbing.
Prosecutors have argued Momeni stabbed Lee to demise in a rage over his sister — who Lee was reportedly having an affair with — and had allegedly been sexually assaulted by drug supplier Lee launched her to.
However Momeni’s attorneys claimed a closely inebriated Lee was the aggressor, and that he sprang at Momeni with the knife over a joke about going to strip golf equipment slightly than spending time with household. They stated Momeni was merely defending himself, and that Lee was fatally stabbed as they fought over the blade.
A knife that was taken from the kitchen of Momeni’s sister was discovered on the scene of the stabbing.
Throughout a rebuttal to Zangeneh’s closing, prosecutor Omid Talai forged doubt on whether or not the thing Lee held within the video was even a knife, and instructed jurors the science nonetheless backed that Momeni was the killer — citing forensics discovering 99% of DNA discovered on the deal with of the knife that killed Lee got here from Momeni, whereas 98% of DNA on the blade got here from Lee.
“Should we believe the defense attorney,” Talai stated, in accordance with Mission Native. “Or should you believe science and DNA?”
However the brand new footage additionally appeared to undercut the testimony of Mohazzabi, who instructed jurors that he’d overheard Momeni being “aggressive” throughout a telephone name with Lee about his sister that night time — but in addition that he didn’t keep in mind doing any medication with Lee or seeing him do any that night time.
It was simply the most recent twist in a case that has despatched shockwaves via the San Francisco tech world, which remembered Lee as a well-loved, hardworking innovator after his demise.
However the case uncovered a seedier underbelly of the well-heeled neighborhood, with a social scene dominated by swinging intercourse events and drug-fueled benders taking heart stage.
Jury deliberations are on account of begin on Wednesday.
