Murder trial: Bob Lee apparently used a knife for cocaine in new video

In a bombshell revelation on the second day of closing arguments, Nima Momeni’s defense team said Cash App founder Bob Lee used a knife to take cocaine hours before he was stabbed.

The claim, supported for the first time today by a video sent to jurors, could bolster claims that Momeni, who is on trial for murder, stabbed Lee in self-defense after Lee attacked him with a knife.

In the video, Lee and his friend Bo Mohazzabi stand outside The Battery, a members-only club where they were drinking on the evening of April 3, 2023 – hours before Lee was killed. One by one, they lean in to administer what appear to be drugs using a long, pointed object that protrudes from Lee’s hand and glitters in the light. Lee is seen placing the instrument in what appears to be a small pocket and lifting it to his nose.

“That’s the knife!” Momeni’s defense attorney Saam Zangeneh exclaimed, pointing across the courtroom at the video. “Look at the dimensions. Look at the size. What else could this be?”

In his hand he brandished a small cardboard knife with a 3.5-inch long “blade” about the size of the paring knife that killed Lee and that was found near the crime scene.

“As long as we have a reasonable theory, you have to find him not guilty,” Zangeneh said. “Unless they can prove that our theory is unfounded, he is not guilty.”

But prosecutor Omid Talai, in his rebuttal to Zangeneh’s closing argument, repeated a key claim from the prosecution’s closing arguments yesterday: 99 percent of the DNA on the knife’s handle came from Momeni and 98 percent on the blade came from Lee.

The handle of the knife Lee used for drugs, “if it was a knife,” would have contained Lee’s DNA, Talai said. “Should we believe the defense attorney…or should you believe the science and DNA?”

For his part, Mohazzabi refused to comment on what was shown in the video.

The video raises questions about who attacked whom on April 4, 2023. It also casts additional doubt on Mohazzabi’s assertion on the witness stand at the start of the trial that he did not remember using drugs with Lee or seeing Lee use them.

Mohazzabi was a key witness in the case against Momeni when he overheard an “aggressive” call in which he said Momeni was “interrogating” Lee about Momeni’s sister and possible sexual assault she had experienced earlier that day. This call is part of the prosecution’s argument that Momeni was angry enough at Lee to kill him; Doubts about Mohazzabi’s character could confuse this narrative.

Lee and Momeni were seen leaving the house of Momeni’s sister, who lives in Millennium Tower, together at around 2 a.m. on April 4, 2023. Moments later, Momeni’s white BMW stopped on Main Street under the Bay Bridge and the two exited the car, and grainy surveillance footage shows Momeni’s figure lunging at Lee before the two separate.

Lee walked away and was later found bleeding and with three stab wounds, and Momeni drove home. Momeni claimed he was acting in self-defense after Lee attacked him over a “bad joke.” Defense attorneys provided Mission Local with an animated video showing the incident as it allegedly occurred.