Nima Momeni’s defense plays a video showing Bob Lee snorting cocaine with a knife

San Francisco – In a surprising revelation Tuesday during closing statements to the jury, defense attorneys for accused murderer Nima Momeni played surveillance video that allegedly shows Cash App founder Bob Lee using a knife to snort cocaine hours before his murder.

The defense says it was the same knife Lee used to confront Momeni over a bad joke in April 2023, and that Momeni fended off the attack in self-defense.

Defense attorney Saam Zangeneh said in his closing argument that Lee used the knife to “scoop and sniff” cocaine during a drug-related brawl that ended with a confrontation with Momeni under the Bay Bridge near a Caltrans property.

Outside court, Zangeneh said: “I’m telling you, we got the measurements, we broke it down, it’s the exact same shape and size as the knife that was found outside the Caltrans parking lot. ‘That’s the knife!’

However, authorities say the knife in question was a Joseph Joseph brand knife, the same brand found in Momeni’s sister’s apartment in Millennium Tower, and that Lee would have no reason to carry a knife .

However, Zangeneh said that “brands of knives are sold everywhere” and questioned why anyone would want to use what he called “worn out, nasty” paring knives as a murder weapon.

Prosecutors said Momeni was the attacker and was upset because he believed his sister Khazar had been drugged and groped by Lee’s dealer.

But Zangeneh said: “Imagine how crazy it sounds. Kill someone’s boyfriend who touched his sister’s butt and gave her a drug. Does that sound crazy? Because that’s what they say.”

The defense attorney said the prosecutor’s motive was flimsy and without a motive the prosecution’s case “makes no sense.”

“The defense gets a closing argument and what they do in that closing argument is point out to the jury that there are different interpretations of each of the pieces of evidence that the government introduced into the trial,” said KTVU legal analyst Michael Cardoza, a former Prosecutor who now works as a defense attorney

Lee’s brother Tim Oliver Lee said of Zangeneh’s comments: “Bob was a great man. It’s just terrible that this person keeps trying to traumatize us, isn’t it? It was a terrible experience.”

Assistant District Attorney Omid Talai accused the defense of misleading and distracting in his rebuttal to jurors on Tuesday.

Referring to Momeni’s various statements on the stand, Talai said either the defendant murdered Lee or “This is the greatest damn coincidence in the history of coincidences.” He urged the jury to give Lee justice and now allow Momeni to also killing Lee’s legacy.

Also on Tuesday, a juror withdrew from the panel due to illness. She was replaced by a substitute juror. The composition has not changed. It’s still a jury of six men and six women that will begin deliberations. Judge Alexandra Robert Gordon of the San Francisco Supreme Court will give final instructions Wednesday.

Henry Lee is a KTVU crime reporter. Email Henry at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @henrykleeKTVU and www.facebook.com/henrykleefan