Cash App’s family learned that Bob Lee, 43, was in court in San Francisco on Monday as they tearfully listened to a police officer explain how he tried to resuscitate Lee as he lay fatally wounded from stab wounds in the early hours of the morning on April 4.
The account was all part of the evidence formally introduced into the case by Assistant District Attorney Omid Talai and included photos of a knife that prosecutors say Nima Momeni, the technical adviser charged with the murder, used to stab Lee. to stab.
San Francisco Police Officer Cedric Hood was one of two officers who tried to save Lee’s life after he was found bleeding on Main Street.
SFPD officer Hood explained how he found a silver knife with a black handle in a locked parking lot.
Investigators later discovered that it was a 4-inch Joseph Joseph brand kitchen knife.
San Francisco prosecutors have begun preparing the murder trial of a tech consultant accused of stabbing Cash App founder Bob Lee to death
The preliminary hearing began Monday before a judge who will decide whether there is enough evidence to go to trial. San Francisco Police Officer Cedric Hood, seen in the dock, was one of two officers who tried to save Lee’s life after they found him bleeding on Main Street
Lee got into a heated argument with Ms. Elyassnia’s brother, a tech entrepreneur named Nima Momeni (pictured in May). He allegedly stabbed Lee with a kitchen knife
Lee was later seen in video footage desperately banging on the doors of an apartment complex as he searched for help
While at the scene, a homeless person was found to be sleeping about 40 feet away from where Lee collapsed.
Resting close to some rubbish bins, the man was also questioned by police at the scene – but he was at a loss when officers approached him.
Crime scene investigator Rosalyn Check also described how Lee had left a trail of blood after the fatal stabbing.
Drops of blood stretched all the way from the Main Street parking lot just outside the Portside apartment complex, where Lee was later seen on video footage desperately banging on the doors as he searched for help.
Blood was found on the side of the apartment building and also on a phone box directly outside, which Lee had also tried to use, reports The standard.
A courtroom outline of the testimony given at the preliminary hearing for Nima Momeni in San Francisco Superior Court on Monday
Saam Zangeneh, one of Momeni’s lawyers, has tried to punch holes in the police evidence
Assistant District Attorney Talai also showed other pieces of evidence, including the trail of blood left by Lee as he staggered for help.
He also showed video footage showing Lee and Momeni leaving Momeni’s sister’s apartment building before the stabbing took place.
Prosecutor Talai previously said at a hearing in May that the knife was part of a unique kitchen set belonging to Momeni’s sister and that analysis showed Momeni’s DNA on the handle of the weapon and Lee’s DNA on the bloodied knife.
Saam Zangeneh, one of Momeni’s lawyers, wondered why the rubber handle of the knife was only tested for DNA and not for fingerprints.
Check said it’s hard to get rubber prints.
“If you want to see if someone touches something, don’t you do fingerprints?” Zangeneh later told reporters. “And they weren’t done with the handle, which is the most important, relevant part of who, if any, was handling that item.”
Cash App tech magnate Bob Lee (pictured), 43, dubbed ‘Crazy Bob’ was stabbed to death in April
The Portside in Main Street, San Francisco, where Cash App founder Bob Lee collapsed and died after being fatally stabbed on April 4
Momeni’s lawyers said in court that the two men had a cordial relationship and that Momeni had no reason to kill him.
Momeni’s lawyers’ comments came during a preliminary hearing, where the prosecution presents its evidence and a judge decides whether there is enough to go through with the trial.
Prosecutors have said Momeni, 38, planned the April 4 attack in which Lee died on a deserted street in San Francisco.
They said he drove Lee to a remote place and stabbed him three times after a dispute over Momeni’s sister, Khazar.
But Tony Brass, one of four lawyers present on Monday, said it was not Lee, but another man who suspected Momeni of behaving inappropriately towards his younger sister.
“What you see is cordial, a cordial relationship between Nima Momeni and Bob Lee,” Brass told reporters after the hearing.
They’re in a car together. Those aren’t two men with murderous rage between them.’
A friend of Lee’s told homicide detectives that they hung out and drank with Momeni’s sister the day before the stabbing, prosecutors previously said in court documents.
The friend said Momeni later questioned Lee about whether his sister was taking drugs or otherwise engaging in inappropriate behavior, and Lee said no.
But Saam Zangeneh, one of Momeni’s lawyers, said he put those questions to Lee regarding the man at whose apartment they had been drinking.
Zangeneh said in court that he had to challenge the idea of an “honor killing” to protect a sister.
Prosecutors have not named a motive, but rather offered a timeline in a case that has attracted media attention, in part because of Lee’s stature in the tech world.
Lee created Cash App, a mobile payment service, and served as the chief product officer of the cryptocurrency MobileCoin.
Momeni allegedly stabbed the teens as a 20-year-old. He is pictured in his Albany High School yearbook photo
Lee and Khazar Momeni (above), the wife of a respected plastic surgeon, are said to have been part of an underground scene of drugs and casual sex
Flowers sit on a tree in front of the building where a technology executive was fatally stabbed outside in San Francisco on April 6, 2023.
Momeni, who has been in prison since his arrest on April 13, has pleaded not guilty. He faces 26 years to life if convicted.
His arrest came more than a week after Lee was found bleeding in the early morning hours of April 4. He later died in a hospital.
Surveillance video from Lee’s final night shows him entering the posh Millennium Tower downtown, where Momeni’s sister lives with her husband, a prominent San Francisco plastic surgeon.
Video footage then shows Lee and Momeni leaving the building together shortly after 2:00 AM and driving off in Momeni’s car.
Lee was found shortly after 2:30 a.m. in San Francisco’s Rincon Hill neighborhood, which has tech offices and apartment buildings but little activity in the early morning hours.
The hearing continues on Tuesday, when Momeni’s defense is expected to bring more of their arguments.