In a win for the prosecution, jurors today were shown a video in which alleged killer Nima Momeni made distinct stabbing motions, which prosecutors say match those that killed Cash App founder Bob Lee.
The video was shown over objections from Momeni’s defense team. The jury was also shown images of the exact locations of Lee’s stab wounds, during testimony from Assistant Medical Examiner Ellen Moffatt.
The video was recorded by San Francisco police Sgt. David Goff, who was tracking Momeni’s movements in the days after the stabbing in April 2023. When he captured Momeni on video, the defendant was talking to Brian Hedley, a private investigator who worked for Momeni’s former defense attorney, Paula Canny.
In the video, Hedley and Momeni are standing in the parking lot at Canny’s office and the video shows Momeni making three arm movements — two to the lower body and one at a higher shoulder level — as he speaks with Hedley.
Then, Momeni can be seen making a throwing motion, which prosecutors have suggested matches the motion he would have made in discarding the kitchen knife he allegedly used to kill Lee.
Momeni allegedly stabbed Lee in April 2023 near the Caltrans parking lot on Main Street, then threw the knife over the fence, where police investigators found it. Momeni left the scene and Lee was found bleeding out in the street.
Photos of Lee’s lifeless body and closeups of his wounds were also shown in the courtroom today, as Lee’s ex-wife, Krista Lee, wiped away tears. Two of the disc-shaped wounds were at his chest level, and one was at his hip.
One of the chest wounds, Moffatt, the medical examiner, said, pierced through the front and back of Lee’s heart. The other did not hit any vital organs, but was five inches deep. The alleged murder weapon, a paring knife, had a blade less than four inches long.
Defense attorney Mike McMullen: And in contrast to the first [chest wound], what can you tell us about the impact of this [one]?
Moffatt: It’s a very serious wound, yes.
The video that prosecutors allege shows Momeni acting out the crime
Defense attorneys have been fighting the admission of Goff’s video since before the trial began, arguing that it violates attorney-client privilege and was taken on private property.
But today the judge allowed it to be admitted into evidence, and the prosecution showed part of it to the jury.
Goff said that he followed Momeni to what he learned was Canny’s parking lot on April 10, 2023. When Momeni exited the office, he smoked a cigarette and spoke with Hedley for several minutes. Goff said he was hoping to get a “surreptitious DNA sample” from Momeni’s cigarette butt, but noticed the purported pantomiming motion as he observed the two men speaking.
“I observed Mr. Momeni make three distinctive stabbing motions with his right hand to the left torso of Mr. Hedley,” Goff said. “The stabbing motions were distinct in that they were toward the left side of Mr. Headley’s body, and they elevated from low to medium to eventually high.”
On the third movement, Goff said, he saw Momeni’s hand in a fist with his fingers facing down.
“Based on what I saw, it looked like him simulating maybe holding an edged weapon or a weapon of some sort in his right hand as he made these motions,” Goff said.
Momeni’s attorneys have argued that he stabbed Lee in self-defense after Lee attacked him, but prosecutors pointed out today that the video did not show Momeni acting out a struggle over the knife.
Prosecutor Omid Talai: Did you ever see, after the stabbing gesture, that hand then being redirected towards his own body?
Goff: No.
Talai: Then after that, did you ever see that hand being redirected towards his own chest?
Goff: No.
Talai: And are you aware that their “defense” —
Defense attorney Bradford Cohen: Judge, I now am going to object, the way they said defense with air quotes. It’s not — you can’t air quote it. It’s a defense, judge, it’s a self-defense case. It’s a legal defense.
The judge agreed to skip over Talai’s question.
In the moments prior to the video footage being shown to the jury today, Momeni’s attorney, Bradford Cohen, told Mission Local that the full video shows more context — and he plans to show that complete footage to the jury when the defense makes its case.
Out of sight of the jury, Cohen showed Goff an earlier section of the same video, in which Goff agreed that Momeni made a circling motion with his hand multiple times.
Cohen said that motion in Goff’s video matches the way Lee was seen on surveillance cameras circling Momeni moments before the alleged stabbing. Prosecutors showed that surveillance video to the jury last week, but Cohen said they prevented the jury from seeing the part where Lee was circling Momeni. It’s unclear if that will be shown.
Defense attorneys attempted to cast doubt on the video, noting that it was impossible to know what Momeni and Hedley were speaking about, and whether the arm motions Momeni made had anything to do with the stabbing.
What’s more, they pointed out that the placement of Lee’s three wounds — one on his hip and two in his chest — didn’t match the motions Momeni made.
Cohen: You have no idea what he’s talking about, right?
Goff: I don’t.
Cohen: You don’t know if he’s talking about what Mr. Lee was trying to do, right?
Goff: That’s right, I don’t know what he’s talking about.
…
Cohen: And did you ever come to find out that Mr. Lee never had any wounds to the upper shoulder, as they show in this video?
Goff: I did not.
Cohen: Did you know that one of the one of the wounds was a hip wound that went from back to front? Did you know that at the time that you were filming this?
Goff: No.
…
Cohen: According to what you saw, this is what you said on direct, is that it appears that he’s making three stabbing motions to… the left side of the body, correct?
Goff: To the left torso, yes.
Cohen: Left torso, okay. That’s not a hip wound, right?
Goff: Uh, no.
Cohen: And it’s certainly not a hip wound that goes from back to front, right?
Goff: Yeah.
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